The Archaeologist's Assistant
by The Sarcastic Raccoon
Summary: An aspiring Egyptologist looking to pursue her dreams, Pyrrah Ananka is currently serving as the overworked assistant of Jonathan Carnahan. When Jonathan and his sister Evie set off on a journey to the lost city of Hamunaptra, Perry is eager to go with them; the unbelievable adventure she is thrust into, however, was not one she had been expecting. Ardeth/OC
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

**Embabeh, Cairo. 1926.**

The city of Cairo never slept.

Long after the red sun dropped into the vast Egyptian deserts in the west, the citizens remained awake, their work continuing and keeping the night bustling and alive.

In the northern neighbourhood of Embabeh, one resident of the area had just completed the trip home after a long day's work.

And there was nothing she desired more than to go to sleep.

"Home, sweet home." Pyrrah sighed, closing her front door behind her.

The Egyptian air was thin and humid, and she was exhausted; her bed— oh, her sweet, comfortable bed— was calling to her from the other room. She hadn't sat down for seventeen hours.

But, as she noticed upon stepping indoors, her flat was an atrocious mess. If she didn't clean it now, it would never get cleaned, because she would undoubtedly come home tomorrow in the exact same mood.

"Oh, why is your house such a mess, Perry?" she asked herself, kneeling down and picking up items of litter from the floor. "Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because your boss is an arrogant, slothful, drunken nitwit!"

She scowled as she scooped up a crumpled pile of clothes from the sofa.

"Who does he think he is?" she snapped at herself, dropping her garbage into the kitchen bin and dumping the clothes she had collected in a basket. "Respected archaeologist, my arse."

The kitchen was no better; unwashed dishes, towers of which had been steadily growing over the past week, were turning the room into some sort of crowded realm of porcelain dishware.

"Perry, go into town and find me a bottle of Jack Daniel's! Perry, write me a letter to Leonard Woolley! Perry, go to the Birqash market and haggle until you get a cheap price on some camels!"

She walked around, mimicking the instructions that her boss had given her throughout the day.

Jonathan Carnahan, harmless as he may have seemed, was one hell of an employer.

An aspiring Egyptologist looking to pursue her dreams, Pyrrah Ananka thought she had struck gold when the man had hired her to be his personal assistant.

When she took the job, she assumed she would be working for an adventurous, hard-working, passionate archeologist who lived up to his reputation, someone in the ranks of Augustus Pitt-Rivers, Mortimer Wheeler and John Lloyd Stevens.

Sure, Jonathan was fun, good for a laugh and rather nonchalant about any mistakes she made. He was often too drunk to care if she was an hour late delivering his new suit, or had forgotten to give him the telephone number of the flapper he'd met the night before.

But, where he wasn't as strict or domineering as other superiors (when he was drunk, at least) came precisely the problem.

Jonathan was incredibly lazy. His dream life consisted of gambling, drinking, and sleeping around.

In order to make this life possible, he needed Pyrrah to live the 'not-so-fun' parts of it on his behalf.

That meant doing everything between shining his shoes and breaking up with the ritzy girls in gladrags the morning after after he'd slept with them.

She yawned as she began to wash the dishes.

Perry was so busy helping Jonathan Carnahan to survive his own life that she barely had time to live hers at all.

Just as the thoughts of her _oh-so-comfortable_ bed began to creep back into her mind, there came a knock at the door.

She looked out the window: it was dark now, nearing midnight, and she couldn't fathom who could possibly want her at this time. Unless—

"Jonathan?"

"Shhhh!"

Jonathan Carnahan, of all people, stumbled into her flat and hastily shut the door behind him, pressing his ear against it as if to listen to the noises in the corridor beyond.

"Mr. Carnahan, what are you doing here?" she asked him, feeling incredibly confused and wondering whether or not she should be worried.

"Hiding!" he said, his voice an urgent whisper.

She crossed her arms.

"Hiding from wh—"

"SHHHHHH!"

She lowered her voice to a whisper, also.

"...Hiding from who, exactly?"

He turned to face her.

His hair was a mess, his cream suit was dirty and creased, and his eyes were bloodshot.

Definitely drunk, she thought, as he swayed on the spot.

"The... The men who were f-fighting me," he slurred.

She shook her head at him pitifully and began to lead him to her couch.

"Oh, Jonathan, sit down," she said.

He obliged, like a child, and sunk into the sofa cushions as she knelt in front of him.

"Tell me what happened." she said.

He took a long, deep breath, and ran a hand through his hair tiredly. He smelled of bourbon and dirt and perfume.

"I was at the Sultan's Casbah." he admitted.

She shut her eyes.

"Haven't we talked about the Sultan's Casbah?" she asked him, condescendingly. "About it's seedy conditions and nasty clientele, and how you always end up in trouble after you go there?"

He stuck his bottom lip out and nodded, sulking like a toddler.

At this point, she felt like his mother, but she often did throughout her working week.

"Yes, but I was having a good time until that scraggly old sap accused me of stealing from him." he spat. "As if I'd fall for it! It's not like I'm buttoned up the back, you know!"

She wasn't quite sure what the term 'buttoned up the back' meant, but she decided not to ask.

Jonathan was English, born and raised in London, and while she was accustomed to British accents and language (since the country was under patronage of the United Kingdom and there were so many British troops stationed there), some of the terms he came up with were a bit strange to her.

Pyrrah Ananka was an Egyptian woman, born and raised.

Her father had been a Saudi Arabian man who fled the country when the Ottoman Empire seized it; in 1916, when Perry was ten, her father had died fighting in the pan-Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

Her mother was a beautiful Egyptian woman from Alexandria who had died when Perry was thirteen.

Pyrrah had inherited the best of both their good genes— bronze Egyptian skin, eyes that were deep and dark like obsidians, and hair as black as the night sky.

She supposed she had siblings out there, somewhere, but she had fended entirely for herself since her mother died, becoming a family of one.

Besides— now that she was well on her way to becoming an archaeologist, she didn't need family.

In fact, Jonathan was the closest thing to a relative she had.

Right now, she felt like she was babying him.

"Why would he accuse you of stealing from him?" she asked the drunken man.

He grinned at her, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small, octagonal box with hieroglyphics covering its sides.

"Because I did."

Her eyes went wide.

"Jonathan! What did you do?!"

He laughed to himself, and leaned forward to examine the item in his hands.

"Took it. Punched him. He got arrested. Came here."

She groaned, while he beamed at the little iron box.

"Wait," she said, leaning forward to examine it as well. "This says... This has things written on it... Its hieroglyphics talk about the dead, and... keeping the desert silent—"

Jonathan suddenly snatched it away from her.

"It's mine." he said, clutching it to his chest possessively.

She tilted her head at him.

"Mr. Carnahan, can't I at least read it?"

"No."

She raised an eyebrow, and pointed at it.

"That might be something special there, something worth a lot of money."

He looked intrigued, but didn't give the box up.

"I'm not letting you see it."

"Why? It's not like you're taking me on a bloody dig any time soon, is it? I may as well have a read."

"No."

"Jonathan!"

"No! No means no!"

She huffed in frustration, and crossed her arms.

"Fine. I'll just have to take it."

Then, without giving him a warning, she snatched for it.

Jonathan leaped away from her, but she vaulted onto the couch and crawled on top of him.

"Give it to me!" she yelled.

He clawed at the cushions, pulling himself away from his assistant and stretching his arms out to keep it as far away from her as possible.

"No! It's mine!"

He used his free arm to hold her off, but she continued struggling to get to the box.

"No it's not!" she snapped. "You STOLE it!"

"Exactly! You'll just want me to give it back, and I don't want to give it back!"

"No I won't! I just want to— WOAH—"

Her pleading was interrupted when Jonathan sat up abruptly, sending her toppling backwards over the edge of the couch. She landed with a thud, feet in the air.

"Miss. Ananka, I am not g-giving you my newest finding, no matter how much you beg, because that would mean you would be all, 'give it back', 'this says something ominous', 'can I keep it', 'can we go on a dig', blah blah... blah... bl..."

She got to her feet and found that Jonathan had passed out on the couch.

"Jonathan?" she asked. "Mr. Carnahan?"

He began to snore.

Perry sighed, and watched him sleep.

The box was in his palm, so she quietly took it and began to read the hieroglyphs.

"Oh, Jonathan," she whispered to herself. "What on earth have you found?"


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

It was noon when Jonathan awoke, though he was entirely disorientated and couldn't bring to mind what year or month or day it was.

The heat had risen, but the flat he was in was kept rather cool with the shade of drawn blinds and a rickety ceiling fan.

Almost immediately upon regaining consciousness, he pushed his headache and nauseousness aside and searched for the puzzle box he had stolen the day before.

"_Sabah al khair._ Looking for this?"

Perry walked into the living room on cue, fresh-faced and holding a small iron box in her hand. She waved it at him, her lips curving into a smirk as he groaned.

"Give it to me," he whispered tiredly, outstretching an arm and grabbing the air.

Ignoring him, she popped it into her handbag and walked away.

"Perry!" he moaned.

"You are taking this to Evie." she called to him.

He frowned to himself, shutting his eyes as his brain throbbed with a hangover.

"What? Why?"

She reemerged in the room, now holding a glass of cold water for him to drink and damp flannel in the other.

"I think you should seek her advice on this particular artifact. She'll know where it's from, and what to do with it."

She passed him the glass, and he drank the water in one long series of gulps. The lethal combination of alcohol and heat had dehydrated him.

Catching his breath and passing her the glass back, he raised an eyebrow.

"What to _do_ with it?"

She moved to sit beside him on the sofa and dabbed the flannel onto his head. It was cold, and droplets of icy water ran down the sides of his face, but he didn't mind.

It was a relief, actually— he was in a hot sweat, and his suit was plastered to his skin. The sickness in his stomach was hard to ignore at this point, and he just wanted to strip down and go back to sleep on his assistant's couch.

"Yes. You shouldn't sell it. It's obviously of some importance, and the hieroglyphics on it state some pretty... _intriguing_ things. We're going to get your sister to examine it." she told him.

He sighed, and let his head fall back onto the cushions as she dabbed at his neck.

"I feel as sick as a dog, Perry..." he whined.

She sighed, put the wet flannel down and helped him to his feet. With a bit of a struggle he stayed upright, and she straightened out his clothes and fixed his hair as best she could.

"I'll go see Evie now." he said, looking towards the door.

"I'm coming with you."

He shook his head.

"No, no, darling, there's no need—"

"Jonathan, you're still drunk. You pay me to make sure you don't get killed when doing things like this," she said, swiftly disappearing into her bedroom and then returning with her hijab in hand. "I'm coming with you."

"Look at this! Sons of the Messiah! Give me frogs, flies, locusts, anything but this! Compared to you, the other plagues were a joy!"

Deep in the bowels of the Museum of Antiquities lay the stacks, a library full to the brim with literature about the antiquities, and apparently that was where Evelyn Carnahan was working today.

Or rather, as Perry had just overheard, it was the room that Evelyn Carnahan had destroyed today, and may not be working in for much longer.

"I'm sorry, it was an accident."

"When Ramesses destroyed Syria, it was an accident. You are a catastrophe! Why do I put up with you?"

Perry had successfully escorted Jonathan to the museum without any fatalities, and then kept him quiet as she wound her way around the building trying to find his sister.

They had been directed to Evie's wherabouts by the violent crashing sounds of bookshelves toppling over, and now Perry found herself in the next room, eavesdropping as the curator scolded her.

It was rather dark down here, which made her uneasy: she suffered from claustrophobia, but had no idea how she had ever contracted such a fear. Trying to keep herself in the present, she focused on Evelyn's lecture.

"Well, she seems to be holding her own..." Perry whispered to Jonathan, after hearing the British woman give the curator an earful as to why exactly he 'put up' with her.

Jonathan didn't make a sound. And that was when Perry realised that Jonathan wasn't there.

"...Mr. Carnahan?"

The hall was silent and her boss was nowhere to be found, despite the fact that he had been stood beside her no more than a second ago.

"_Jonathan?_" she hissed.

"...I don't care how you do it. I don't care how long it takes. Just straighten up this place!"

Her heart leaped into her throat as she heard the curator storming in her direction. Jonathan was nowhere, and she was alone in a part of the museum where she was probably not supposed to be.

Attempting to silently scuttle away before he caught sight of her, she froze in her tracks when her plan failed.

"Can I help you?"

She shut her eyes and cursed, and then spun around to face this man, a polite smile plastered onto her face. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"...Hello," she said, laughing nervously. "I, uh... I was just—"

"Do I know you?" he asked, suddenly.

He eyed her, trying to place her in his mind, and she prayed that he couldn't. Unfortunately, he rolled his eyes, and she knew that he had remembered her from a past encounter.

"Oh, it's you! The violent girl!"

Her face dropped.

About a year prior, Perry had visited the museum with Jonathan, as he wanted to talk to Evie about one sibling-related thing or another. Towards the end of their trip, Jonathan had been pick-pocketed.

If karma ever took action, this would have been it— Jonathan deserved a taste of his own medicine, after having robbed so many unsuspecting people in his time. Part of Perry had wanted to let the burglar get away with it, just to annoy Jonathan.

But she was strangely loyal to her boss, and she had called the man out on it in front of many of the museum's visitors that day. Jonathan had spent nearly five years wallowing about Egypt with a dying career, and whatever money he possessed was precious, and probably inherited from his late parents' monthly stipend.

She wasn't going to let it slip away from him, even if he was just going to spend it on another bottle of liquor.

The thief repeatedly denied her accusations, and she lost her temper.

One swift punch had broken his jaw, and upset a few people, and she had been asked not to return to the museum.

"That wasn't me." she told him, as innocently as she could.

He scoffed.

"Of course it was you! You're Carnahan's assistant. I asked you never to come back to my museum, Miss. Ananka!"

"Dr. Bey," she said, softly. "That was a misunderstanding. A little mistake."

He stared blankly at her.

"You partially broke a man's jaw."

She cleared her throat and nodded, guilty as charged.

"To be fair, I'm not usually like that, though. I lost my temper that day. It was his fault, he tried to steal from Mr. Carnahan."

Terence Bey pursed his lips.

"Again," he said, not amused. "Why are you here?"

Her eyes scanned the room once more, searching for any traces of Jonathan, but to no avail. She mustered up an excuse.

"I'm here to return a book to Evelyn."

Then, a scream echoed out from the distance. It was followed by the familiar cackling of her drunken boss. Terence didn't look bothered by the noises.

"She's in there. Please don't loiter."

Perry awkwardly left him, hurrying through the stacks and into a darker section beyond that she could only guess was the Ramesseum.

This room was lit only by flickering torches, and artefacts from the Middle Kingdom were stored all around; if wasn't for the bickering voices of the Carnahans reaching her ears, she might have been a tad spooked by the place.

"...My dear, sweet, baby sister..."

Ah, so Jonathan was in here. No doubt he was the cause of his sister's scream.

"...I'll have you know, that at this moment my career is on a high note."

And he was blatantly lying to her, too.

As she neared them, Evelyn's antagonised voice became clearer.

"High note? Ha! For five years you've been scrounging around Egypt, and what have you to show for it? Nothing."

Perry sighed, and decided to put her two cents into the conversation.

"I'd love to agree with you, Evie," she called, getting both their attentions as she moved hastily towards them. "But I'm afraid your brother actually found something quite interesting recently."

Evie peered over the rims of her glasses at the approaching woman.

"Perry. I didn't know you were here."

Perry shot Jonathan a cold look and grimaced.

"Yes, I've been keeping him out of trouble, something that requires the patience of a saint. And it was my suggestion that we visited you. Jonathan has an item to show you."

Her drunken boss seemed to remember what their primary goal was here, and he began searching his pockets excitedly for the puzzle box.

"Oh yes, I do! I have something right here!"

Evelyn turned away from Perry and tutted.

"Oh no, not another worthless trinket, Jonathan, if I bring one more piece of junk to the curator to try and sell for you..."

Perry stood at Evie's side, arms folded and looking on, as Jonathan pulled the box out of his pocket. His sister became immediately curious, snatching it out of his grasp.

"Where did you get this?"

"I asked him the same question..." Perry mumbled.

Jonathan shot her a glare that said _'shut up or you're fired'_, and she fell silently into a sulk.

"On a dig down in Thebes." he lied.

Perry's jaw dropped, and she gave him a look of disgust. Ensuring that Evie wasn't looking, he pressed his finger to his lips and mimed shushing her.

They both looked back to Evie, who was immersed in studying the hieroglyphics on the puzzle box.

"My whole life I've never found anything, Evie," Jonathan said. "Tell me I found something."

Perry rolled her eyes again when he mentioned not finding anything: maybe he would, had he ever even attempted to keep his promises regarding digs and the like.

Evie turned the puzzle box over in her hands, sliding slats around until there was a click, and it unfolded like a little machine.

"Woah..." Perry whispered, leaning in closer to get a better look. "Would you look at that..."

A golden papyrus sheet had popped out of it.

"Jonathan?" Evie addressed her brother.

"Yes?"

"I think you found something."

As fast as Perry had scurried away from the curator, she found herself following Evelyn to his office, guiding Jonathan through certain parts of the museum by his shoulders in order to stop him from walking into walls.

He sobered up a bit when Evie got excited; Perry watched from beside him as the woman hovered over the curator's shoulder as he examined the little iron box.

She was beaming.

"See the cartouche there, it's the official royal seal of Seti the First, I'm sure of it."

"Perhaps."

Dr. Bey didn't look impressed, but Perry watched the way his eyes moved across the room. Something about the man was... off.

Then again, maybe she just knew that he didn't like her. _Violent girl._

Jonathan suddenly thrust himself into the scene.

"Two questions: who the hell is Seti the First? And was he rich?"

Perry scoffed, and stormed around the back of the desk to look her boss in the eye.

"You call yourself an archaeologist? Do you know nothing of Egypt's history?" she snapped, angrily.

He narrowed his eyes at her, and she at him.

Evelyn ignored their childish behaviour and answered him.

"He was the last Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom, said to be the wealthiest Pharaoh of them all."

Perry knew the response before the words left Jonathan's lips.

"Alright good, that's good, I like this fellow, like him very much."

She sighed, and folded her arms.

"He was a Pharaoh in the nineteenth dynasty, son of Ramesses I and Queen Sitre, father of Ramesses II, Princess Nefertiri, Princess Tia and Princess Henutmire," she explained. "Menmaatre Seti ruled Egypt for 15 years, and he reestablished order in the kingdom after Akhenaten's religious reform."

Jonathan stared cluelessly at her, blinked, and then nodded dumbly.

_In one ear, out the other,_ she thought.

"I've already dated it, this map is almost four thousand years old. And the hieratics over here..." she inhaled deeply, "It's Hamunaptra."

Perry forgot about scolding Jonathan and eyed the curator, who momentarily froze in nervousness.

He recovered, sensing Perry's eyes on him, and scoffed at Evie.

"My dear girl, don't be ridiculous. We are scholars, not treasure hunters. Hamunaptra is a myth."

"Are we talking about _the_ Hamunaptra?" Jonathan asked.

"Indeed we are, Mr. Carnahan. _The_ Hamunaptra!" Perry said, eyes twinkling and excitement sparking her voice, before Evie could even answer.

"Yes. The City of the Dead. Where the early Pharaohs were said to have hidden the wealth of Egypt."

"Right, right, in a big underground treasure chamber. Everybody knows the story," Jonathan said. "The entire necropolis was rigged to sink into the sand. On Pharaoh's command, a flick of the switch! The whole place could disappear beneath the dunes."

Evie was beaming. Seriously and with full intensity, she said, "All we know is that the city mysteriously vanished around 2134, B.C."

Perry leaned in next to Jonathan.

"Perhaps somebody needs to find out whether that switch was flipped or not."

They shared a look: money and gold and riches in his blue eyes, adventure and discoveries and glory in her brown ones.

Completely immersed in individual fantasies of Hamunaptra's fortune and mystery, neither of them noticed the curator hold the papyrus map from the puzzle box a little too close to his candle lamp.

"As the Americans would say: it's all fairy tales and hokum..."

A blaze and a crackling noise caught their attention; the map was on fire. Perry yelped in horror, and the curator tossed it to the floor.

"No! _No_ _no no_!" Perry screeched, as Jonathan, Evie and she all dashed to the aid of the map as if it were a dying person.

Jonathan quickly put out the flames, and lifted the map in dismay to see that a large portion of it was burnt off.

"You burned it! You burned off the part with the lost city!" he yelled.

The curator didn't show the slightest remorse.

"It was for the best, I'm sure. Many men have wasted their lives in the foolish pursuit of Hamunaptra, most have never found it, no one has ever returned." he argued.

Perry scowled at him, knowing now that he was definitely playing at something. He had been strange since they brought him the puzzle box. How convenient that it caught fire whilst in his possession.

Jonathan stared at the charred paper in devastation.

"You killed my map."

She sadly placed her hands on his shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze, equally as crushed by its ruin; suddenly, it was like the map had been their child.

Behind them, the curator reached for the puzzle box. Evelyn snatched it away from him, now joining Perry in her suspicions.

"Well, that didn't go well." Pyrrah hissed, as they traipsed out of the museum.

Jonathan was still holding the wreckage of the map in his hands, sulking at it, willing it to magically regenerate at his fingertips.

"That man has it out for us, I'm sure. It was no accident that it got burned." she ranted.

"You just don't like him because he banned you from the museum last year, Pyrrah." Evie mumbled.

Jonathan winced to himself. His assistant rolled her eyes and manoeuvred him in the direction of his car.

"Well, I'm not going to let him stop us from getting to Hamunaptra." she said.

Evie stopped in her tracks and stared at the girl.

"What do you mean?"

Perry slowed Jonathan to a halt and turned to face the librarian, who adjusted the glasses that sat on the bridge of her nose in a mousy manner.

"Your brother did not get this on a dig in Thebes." she said.

Evie raised her eyebrows expectantly at Jonathan.

"Is that so?"

Jonathan didn't look at her; he was still fixated on the map. Perry answered for him.

"We've not been on a dig in years. He stole it."

"Stole it?!" Evie asked.

She nodded.

"Yes. I won't go into details, but the man he stole it from got arrested. With some luck, we can track him down. I happen to have an idea of which prison he was taken to."

Evie smiled.

"Interesting. I do like this idea, Perry," she said. "But I'm very upset with you, Jonathan."

Jonathan was swaying unsteadily where he stood.

"...Jonathan?"

The man hiccupped loudly, and turned his tired eyes to Perry.

"I th-think I... I'm going to upchuck, d-darling."

The eyes of both Evelyn and Pyrrah grew wide, and the younger girl grabbed her boss' shoulders once more.

"Oh dear."

She began to guide him even more quickly to his car, calling over her shoulder to Evie as they went.

"You go home and get changed. I'll get him cleaned up, and we'll go to the prison! _Ashoofook baad al dhuar_!"


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

Being escorted across the gallows courtyard of a filthy Cairo prison by a stinky scumbag warden was certainly not what Pyrrah had planned on doing today when she awoke.

But, as they say, people make plans and god laughs.

"How did you know it would be this prison?" Jonathan quietly asked her as they scurried past cells.

He was sober, now, redressed and in ship shape. Looking dapper, if she did say so herself.

It had taken a rather long time for him to finish puking his guts up; when the vomiting ceased, he had passed out in a trembling, cold sweat, and she had singlehandedly dragged him into a bath of cold water to wake him up again.

Bathed, shaved, suited up and free of alcohol, they had met Evelyn on time for the prison visit. But only after they had sworn never again to speak of the fact that she had helped him take a bath.

Putting that thought to the back of her mind, she quietly answered him.

"Well, there are three prisons closest to the Sultan's Casbah, where he was arrested. This one, Dar Sholmes, and Dar Sabra." she explained. "This particular prison is an overrun, crowded cesspit of scum, where a mangy drunk is most likely to be thrown, because the warden is a vile little man who does not care how many people he should house in his establishment."

Jonathan nodded, satisfied with the answer. Then, he raised a finger in further question.

"How did you deduce this, exactly?"

She grimaced.

"I know from experience, unfortunately. I was arrested for stealing, in the time when I was homeless and only a child, and I was in here for about a week until the warden let me go. In exchange for my freedom, I was to live with him for a month."

Jonathan pulled a face. The stout, smelly man they were being given the 'grand tour' by was certainly not somebody he'd want to spend an hour with, let alone a month.

"And how did that go?"

Perry scoffed, and lowered her voice.

"I took off. Only a fool would have stayed with that foul man," she grumbled. "He doesn't recognise me, now. I am a woman, and I would surely slice his head off with a scimitar should he strike a deal with me once more."

Jonathan fell silent at her mention of decapitation- an exaggeration, he hoped- and decided not to ask his assistant any further questions.

This silence didn't last long, however, for Evie whispered something to him.

"You told me you found it on a dig down in Thebes!"

He took on a pained expression at the mention of his fibs, and Perry smirked at him and casually fell behind the brother-sister duo.

"I was mistaken."

"You lied to me!"

"I lie to everybody, what makes you so special?"

"I'm your sister."

"That just makes you more gullible."

"Perry said you stole it from a drunk at the local Casbah?!"

"Picked his pocket, actually."

Perry couldn't help but giggle at their bickering, but the delight was short-lived as the warden ushered them into the visitor's pen.

Whereas Perry was completely comfortable in the prison environment, Evelyn was looking uncomfortable.

"And what is he in prison for?" she asked.

The warden looked over to them, and for a moment, eyed Pyrrah's face. Suddenly she wished she was wearing a niqāb.

"I did not know, so when I heard you were coming, I asked him that myself." he replied.

"And what did he say?" Evie further inquired.

The doors were going to be opened. They were going to meet this man. This person who had ultimately caused Jonathan to run to her house in drunken terror and pass out on the sofa.

Perry found herself wondering what exactly this fellow could be like.

"He said..." the warden answered. "He was just looking for a good time."

The cell door beyond the bars burst open. Four guards, barely restraining a wild, feral-looking caucasian man, were dragged through. They thrust him against the bars.

Evelyn looked repulsed by his appearance; his hair was matted and tangled, he was unshaven, and his muscular body was dirty and covered in scrapes and bruises.

He gripped the rusty iron and glared at his three visitors.

"But he's just a filthy criminal!" Evelyn exclaimed.

Jonathan cringed at his sister's blatant honesty.

"Way to go, Evie..."

Sensing that it wasn't her place to deal with this man (even if she had found his location for the Carnahans), Perry remained hovering behind Jonathan.

She liked to observe trouble rather than be at the centre of its attention; for this, she felt better when the English woman became the object of the man's speculation.

"So who's the broad?" the prisoner asked Jonathan.

He was American.

"Broad?!" Evie repeated, offended.

Perry leaned over to whisper in her ear and state the obvious.

"He means you."

"She's my sister, actually." Jonathan answered.

The man didn't look over the moon.

"Yeah? ...Well, I'm sure she's not a total loss."

Perry snorted at him, grinning at Evelyn's flabbergasted expression. She was ignored.

"I'll be back in a moment." the warden called to them as he left the visitor's pen.

The scruffy American man glared after him.

"I tremble with anticipation."

_At least he's got a sense of humour,_ Perry thought, smirking from behind the Carnahans.

Apparently, his wit came at a price; a guard clubbed him across the head, and his face ricocheted off of the bars. He shot the guard the same look he had given the warden.

At the same time, Evie found some guts, and stepped closer to the bars.

"We, uh... Found your puzzle box, and we've come to ask you about it."

"No." he said.

"No?"

"No. You came to ask me about Hamunaptra."

The Carnahan siblings looked every-which-way to ensure not a single soul had overheard him speak the name of the dead city. Perry, meanwhile, tilted her head at the man in amusement.

To her surprise, he shot her a quick grin, and then became serious again.

Jon and Evie stepped forward.

"How do you know the box pertains to Hamunaptra?" Evie asked.

"Becuase that's where I found it. I was there."

Evelyn looked fascinated and intrigued and totally shocked, but her brother was skeptical.

"How do we know that's not a load of pig swallow?"

The prisoner looked closer at Jonathan, recognition surfacing suddenly.

_Uh oh,_ Perry thought.

"Um, well, you see..."

_Oh no—_

A fist flew through the bars and knocked Jonathan out cold. The guards gave the prisoner a clubbing again. Perry looked over at him, smiling fondly.

"I knew that was coming..." she glanced down at her employer, and nodded. "Truthfully, he deserved it."

Then, she dropped to her knees at his side, attempting to revive him.

"Jonathan... Mr. Carnahan... Wake up. Come on. Lets not do this again..."

He didn't move. She stayed, trying to wake him, not concerned with Evelyn for the time being.

The next thing she knew, the guards were harshly wrestling the prisoner back into his cell.

Evelyn looked flustered— she was blushing a bit, and somehow Perry didn't think it was from the heat. What had just gone on between Evie and the American, she didn't know, but it had concluded in her disappointment at his sudden departure.

"Where are they taking him?"

Fabulous warden Gad had reappeared at some point. He cackled when he answered her.

"To be hanged."

**XxXxX**

"Wh- Wh—"

For the second or third time that day, Jonathan Carnahan was emerging from a bout of involuntary unconsciousness.

"Oh, good, you're waking up. You missed all the fun."

They were in the shade; under a balcony, perhaps, behind a crowd of people who were yelling and screaming and behaving like chimps. The focus of their attention appeared to be somewhere in the centre of wherever the hell they were, under the sun.

"What's happening? Why is everybody so rowdy?"

Judging by the smell, they were still in the prison.

"He knocked you out. And they took him to be hanged." Perry answered, peering down at him.

He was on the concrete floor, propped up against a wall, and she was crouched at his side.

"Hanged? No! He's going to take us to—"

"Shhh!"

She pressed a finger to his lips before he could say Hamunaptra.

"His neck didn't snap. And judging by the way they cut him down rather than letting him strangle to death, I think your sister bought the warden off for his life." she explained.

So they were in the hanging yard. Always a lovely place to wake up, Jonathan thought.

"Where is she, then?"

"I couldn't follow her," Perry sighed. "No women allowed. At least, none that are veiled."

She gestured to her hijab, and then helped Jonathan to his feet, dusting off his clothes.

In perfect time, Evie rushed over to them through the bustling crowd.

"I saved him! I did! We're going to Hamunaptra! We're going!" she whispered, giddily.

"Good job, sis..." Jonathan mumbled, rubbing his face where he had been punched.

Perry smiled at Evie.

"When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow," she whispered. "So get packing!"

Perry nodded to Jonathan, and they were soon back in his car, heading their separate ways after he dropped her off in Embabeh.

Never had her trunk been packed so quickly, and never had she had such a restless, excited sleep.

This was probably giddiest she had been in her entire life. Hell, the last time she'd been this happy, it was when Jonathan had hired her, almost five years ago.

One trip held so much promise for her, so much thrill.

She was dreaming of an adventure.

Little did she know just how much of an adventure she was going to get.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

Perry travelled with the Carnahans to Giza Port with a newfound sense of jubilance within her.

She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was— maybe escaping the clutches of Jonathan's exhausting working days or being out in the field, feeling like a proper archaeologist— but exhilaration filled her chest when she imagined Hamunaptra, and her mind was abuzz with excitement.

Just being at the ports was amazing in itself: across the Nile, the great pyramids reached up to the heavens; adventurers and explorers were swarming all around; hawkers were constantly trying to sell her cheap, meaningless things.

Jonathan saw her smiling.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

She attempted to straighten her face, but found she couldn't do a decent job of it.

"_Aiwa._ Yes. I am. I've been waiting for an expedition of sorts for a long time now, Mr. Carnahan."

He smiled, but it was tainted with guilt.

"I'm not the best archaeologist, am I?"

Jonathan Carnahan was such a careless man, that it broke her heart a little when she saw him feel bad about things. He was a liar, a cheater and thief, but she'd rather see him drunk and happy than sober and sad.

She laughed at him, and shook her head. The guilt lessened.

"Perhaps you would be if it weren't for your love affair with beers, wines and spirits."

He stared up at the sky, feigning sincerity.

"Perhaps."

She adjusted the rucksack on her shoulders and then playfully punched him on the arm.

"Come on, boss. This is going to be a fun trip. The best trip! Get to the city... Find some treasure..."

He instantly brightened at the mention of that.

"It is going to be a very fun trip, isn't it darling?"

They chuckled and Jonathan got that greedy look in his eye again, but the happiness was interrupted by Evie, who was fretting and moody and in all kinds of emotional turmoil this morning.

"Do you really think he'll show up?"

Evie was dressed in white and cream and wore a sun hat, looking gorgeous as usual.

Perry couldn't decide whether it was accidental that Jonathan was dressed in a cream suit that almost matched his sister's, but either way, she wasn't quite as colour coordinated as the siblings: her trousers and dress and hijab were grey and black, standing out at the port where everybody seemed to be dressed in desert colours.

"Undoubtedly, I know the breed," Jonathan told his sister. "He may be a cowboy, but his word is his word."

Evie didn't look convinced.

"Personally, I think he's filthy, rude, and a complete scoundrel. I don't like him one bit."

"Anyone I know?"

The three of them spun around at the sound of Rick O'Connell's voice.

He was stood, tall and smirking and quite dashing, looking at Evie. He was shaven and his hair was cut; he was clean, and well-dressed. Definitely not the rugged scoundrel they had encountered the previous day.

Perry leaned in to Evie's ear.

"Well, somebody cleaned up nice..." she whispered.

Evie ignored her and addressed Rick with unhidden guilt.

"Oh... um... hello."

Jonathan dismissed his sister's awkwardness by grabbing O'Connell's arm and enthusiastically shaking his hand.

"Smashing day for an adventure, eh, O'Connell?"

He smiled nervously and suspiciously at the Englishman, and then checked to see that his wallet was still in his pocket.

"Yeah, sure, smashing."

"By the way, Richard," Jonathan began, placing a hand on Perry's shoulder. "This is my assistant, Miss. Pyrrah Ananka. I don't believe the two of you have been formally introduced."

"_Marhabbah_."

She gave him a small smile; Rick gave her a nod.

"Actually, she saw me deck you and seemed pretty impressed with the punch."

Jonathan's face dropped, and he turned to Perry with surprise. She shook her head in denial, only half convincing him that she wouldn't take pleasure in such a thing.

After the introductions with Perry were made, and then Evelyn became serious and looked up at Rick.

"Mister O'Connell, can you look me in the eye, and guarantee me this is not some sort of flimflam? Because if it is, I'm warning you—"

Rick stepped up close to Evelyn, invading her space and looking her dead in the eye. She didn't back away.

"All I can tell you, Miss, is that my colonel found that map in an ancient fortress, and the whole damn garrison believed in it so much, that without orders, we marched halfway across Egypt and into Libya to find that city. Like I told ya, all I saw was sand. Everybody else was wiped out by Tuareg warriors. I'll take your bags."

With that, Rick took her bags and marched onto the passenger barge they were stood by.

Evelyn looked after him wistfully, and Perry and Jonathan shared a knowing glance. Jon leaned towards his sister.

"Yes, yes, you're right. Filthy, rude, a complete scoundrel, nothing to like there at all..."

Perry chuckled, even more so when Evie shot him a death glare, but was thrown into anger when the familiar smell of Gad Hassan suddenly drifted over to them.

"The warden?!" she hissed to Jonathan.

"A bright good morning to all!" the stout man cheered.

He was loaded with luggage, and heading for the gangplank.

"What are you doing here?" Evelyn asked him in alarm.

"I have come to protect my investment, thank you very much."

Perry groaned, and covered her face with her hands, as if doing so would make him disappear forever.

"Okay, wardens aside, let's get a move on, Pyrrah," Jonathan told her. "Get my bags. Chop chop, hurry along."

And she found herself frustratedly lugging Mr. Carnahan's heavy, excessive, no doubt contraband luggage up onto the passenger barge herself, as Jonathan waltzed on hands-free.

**XxXxX**

Perry got settled in her cabin when they set sail, and spent the afternoon gazing out onto the Nile and reading archaeological dissertations to brush up on her knowledge and get excited.

When the moon was full and beaming down on the world's longest river, she changed into her black satin nightgown and decided to catch forty winks.

Jonathan's room was next door to hers; she thought that it was best she check on him before she went to bed. If he wasn't already passed out from inebriation, he would probably just send her down to the bar to get him a whiskey or something.

"Mr. Carnahan?"

She knocked several times on the door, to no avail, and proceeded to cautiously step into an empty suite.

Her mind was suddenly filled with images of Jonathan getting thrown overboard and being eaten by crocodiles, and whilst these images were a tad pleasant, she didn't want to compromise her expedition.

So worried that she didn't even consider putting a few more layers of clothes on, she set out to find him.

"Alright, lads, I see you, and I raise you—"

"Mr. Carnahan?"

Funnily enough, she found him at the bar, playing a card game with three other men.

She stood behind him, hands on hips like a cross parent. He became a statue, unmoving under her glare. She could feel him cringe.

"Perry!" he said cheerfully, without looking at her. "How nice of you to join us!"

She frowned.

"What are you doing?"

He looked over his shoulder at her, and smiled weakly.

"Playing poker?"

She let her arms fall to her sides and sighed exasperatedly.

_At least he isn't drunk yet,_ she thought.

"I was worried, I was starting to think you had been tossed overboard." she told him.

"Oh, don't worry about old me," he said, shuffling his cards. "Come, darling, take a seat."

Meaning to oblige, she took a step forward, but then hesitated. She eyed the men with him.

"Oh, meet Burns, Henderson and Daniels." Jonathan told her on an afterthought. "They're Americans, and they're good for a laugh. And that's Dr. Chamberlain."

The men each gave her a polite wave in turn, except for the doctor with the fez hat, who was sat separately from the others.

"Gentlemen, allow me to introduce my assistant, Pyrrah Ananka."

"Can you play poker, sweetheart?" the blonde one named Henderson asked her, a cocky grin on his face.

She raised an eyebrow.

"I am not your sweetheart, thanks," she snapped. "And for your information, I can play poker better than all of you. Skills combined."

Ignoring the teasing grins she received, she took a seat beside Jonathan, who was smirking at her attitude.

"Deal me in."

The game continued, with Perry slinking in nicely and building a considerable pile of winnings at her side of the table.

"Say, I didn't know you could play, Perry..." Jonathan remarked, impressed.

"Where'd you learn?" Burns asked her.

Making sure not to smile at the royal flush she was steadily collecting, she didn't look away from her hand when she answered the man.

"Gentlemen, when you live on the streets of Cairo, you have to learn any way and every way to make fast money."

They hummed in intrigue, but she said no more.

The game went on; the night got colder, but she didn't care. It was nice to let her hair down for once, and they weren't in the middle of the crowded city where she would be chastised for forgetting her hijab and wearing so little.

Although, no matter how much each of the men offered to buy her a drink, she declined. Not a drop of alcohol would grace her lips; it was against her religion. No surprise that she and Jonathan were of different faiths.

Eventually, Rick stepped out onto the deck (carrying some sort of gunny sack) and caught sight of their game. By this point, Perry was fixated on winning, and didn't bother greeting him.

"Quit playin' with yer glasses and cut the deck, would ya, Burns?" Daniels said to his companion.

"Without my glasses I can't see the deck to cut it, can I?" the man with the bowtie retorted.

Perry liked his bowtie. It was snazzy.

"Touché, Burns," Perry cut in. "But you better clean them fast, because I'm on a winning streak and I'm looking to rob you all of your gold..."

"Sit down, O'Connell, sit down, we could use another good player," Jonathan urged Rick.

"I only gamble with my life, never my money."

Perry snorted at such a response. _What sense did that make?_

"Never? What if I was to bet you five hundred dollars, says we get to Hamunaptra before you?" suggested Daniels, eyeing Rick.

Perry's poker face dropped as she realised that that information was probably best not disclosed to these men. Who had told them?

She eyed Jonathan in her peripheral vision. Didn't need to guess twice there.

Daniels began rapidly dealing out their new hands.

"You're looking for Hamunaptra?" O'Connell asked.

"Damn straight, we are." Henderson said, grinning.

"And... Who says _we_ are?" Rick asked.

Perry sighed and poked her thumb at Jonathan without looking up. To her surprise, the Americans' voices chimed in with a chorus of, "He does."

Jonathan turned guiltily to Rick and laughed awkwardly. He looked like a child in trouble with his parent.

"Well? How 'bout it?" Daniels asked O'Connell. "Is it a bet?"

A smile spread across Rick's face.

"Alright. You're on."

Dr. Chamberlain, smoking on his pipe and looking ever so arrogant nearby, eyed O'Connell through his monocle.

"What makes you so confident?" he sneered.

"What makes _you_?" Perry snapped back.

"We got us a man who's actually been there," said Henderson, proudly.

Perry and Rick exchanged a look.

"Well, what a coincidence, because—" Jonathan began.

Acting on an impulse, Perry suddenly rammed her heel into her boss' shin, casing him to wince and stop speaking. No good would come of his blabbermouthing.

She was pretty sure that she heard a thump as O'Connell's gunny sack made contact with him, too, but she was more focused on acting nonchalant so as to prevent suspicions arising from the Americans.

Jonathan quickly covered for his blunder.

"Whose play is it? Is it my play? I thought I just dealt?"

She saw Rick's hands squeeze Jonathan's shoulders; he spoke through gritted teeth.

"Gentlemen, we got us a wager. Good evening... Perry... Jonathan..."

And then Rick left.

"Night!" Jonathan laughed, breathily.

The Americans watched him walk away. Daniels and Henderson exchanged a suspicious look, and seeing this, Jonathan nudged Perry for help.

She beamed at them suddenly, and lay her cards flat onto the table.

"Royal flush!"

**XxXxX**

"Well, we won our fair share this evening, darling, I'll tell you that."

"_I _won_._ _I_ won our fair share."

The poker game had finished, with Perry coming out on top, and after he downed his drink she escorted Jonathan back to his cabin.

He spread their winnings out on a coffee table and sat eyeing them dreamily whilst she tidied his room up; it was already getting messy, and they'd not even been on the boat a full day.

"Just think," he sighed, picking up a pound coin and letting it gleam in the lamplight. "What we could possibly find in Hamunaptra."

She laughed.

"Has anybody ever told you you're materialistic, Mr. Carnahan?"

He stood up and tuned around to face her.

"One Egyptian pound is worth five U.S. dollars, you know." he said.

She folded a couple of stray dress shirts and moved over to his closet to store them away, Jonathan following her.

"Imagine finding a piece of gold that was, say, one troy ounce. How much would that be worth?" he asked her.

She brushed past him when he reached her side, moving back the way she came to pull back his bed sheets and fluff his pillows. She calculated it in her head whilst she went about her business, Jonathan approaching her once more.

"Once ounce... Four Egyptian pounds." she replied.

He reached her side again, and held the coin out, as if expecting her to marvel at it.

"Four Egyptian pounds. How many U.S. dollars is that?"

"..._Ishrin_... Around twenty."

"Precisely!" he whispered. "One troy ounce is twenty U.S. dollars!"

She rolled her eyes and brushed past him again, scuttling over to the beside table at the opposite side of the bed to tidy away an open bottle of scotch. He crawled across the mattress to sit in front of her like a dog.

"We're going to be rich! And that's not even considering how much they're worth because they're thousands of bloody years old!"

She finished tidying up and stood facing him, giving him her undivided attention for the first time in a while.

"Well, I'd be happy just to discover a couple of things to have put on display in the museum." she told him.

He huffed.

"That's boring, Pyrrah. You're too much of a goodie-goodie-two-shoes."

She laughed loudly, whilst he fell back onto his pillows and sulked.

"Believe me, Mr. Carnahan, I'm anything but a 'goodie-goodie-two-shoes'." she muttered, striding away to close his closet doors and shut the blind to his cabin window.

He raised an eyebrow, cheekily.

"Is that so?"

She hummed, watching his mischievous expression out of the corner of her eye. He grinned, and winked at her.

"Perhaps you'd like to show me how much of a bad girl you can be?"

He barely had time to register what was going on before a heavy cushion was hurled across the room at his face.

"I'll take that as a no," he mumbled. "But, come to think of it, maybe I should find you a boyfriend on this trip, Pyrrah."

She snorted.

"A boyfriend?"

He nodded, looking thoughtful.

"Hmm, yes. Find some hard-boiled daddy for you to share in a bit of whoopee with. Let a bit of that frustration out. Maybe then you wouldn't be so angry all the time..."

She stared at him, completely offended but without the energy to scold him, and then sighed calmingly.

"_Tesbahey ala khear,_ Jonathan."

She swiftly moved to the door, not looking back at the cheeky man.

"I'm just saying—"

He began to justify his suggestions when they both jumped in shock at the sound of gunshots.

_BANG. BANG._

They froze and looked at one another.

A few more rounds were fired; Pyrrah's eyes went wide.

"They're coming from that direction." she said. "Evie's room?!"

Jonathan jumped up, Perry flung the door open, and they both dashed down the corridor in the direction of Evelyn Carnahan's cabin.


	5. Chapter 5

**Fun Fact: I took Pyrrah's surname, "Ananka", from the character of Princess Ananka (the orginal Anck-su-namun) of the 1944 movie, "The Mummy's Curse". Princess Ananka was the love of Kharis, the Mummy, and was portrayed by Virginia Christine. **

**CHAPTER 5**

"EVIE!"

Flames engulfed her cabin, spreading across the carpet in a blaze of light and heat.

"Oh my God! What happened?!" Perry called to him, over the roaring and crackling of the flames.

"I don't think she's here!" Jonathan shouted blindly.

Perry's eyes shot around the room in panic, ensuring that nobody was trapped in the growing fire. Jonathan had apparently done the same thing, but what he caught sight of was not a person, but the iron puzzle box.

Without warning, he bent down to pick it up, but before they knew what was happening, a hand snatched it away from him.

"Hey, that's mine—"

A man whose long, dark robes were swallowed by flames now held the box, rising from the fire and making their eyes go wide with fear.

He only had one hand: the other was a hook, and his face was covered in what looked like hot wax. Rolling around on the couch, his eye was red, as if something had been jammed into it, but Perry hardly had time to observe all of these details about the hideous man.

He stood, engulfed in flames, clutching his face, and barged into Jonathan like a bull.

"Mr. Carnahan!" she shouted, yanking him into the hallway as the man's fiery body just missed them.

Jonathan looked stunned— if it wasn't for her, he would surely be on fire or stabbed or the like— but she gave him no time to compose himself before dragging him in the direction of the deck.

When they reached the open air, they found panicked horses running everywhere, people screaming and shouting, and half the boat encased in fire.

"Lovely," Perry snapped. "This was exactly how I planned this trip would be!"

Out here on the barge's bow, the three Americans were crouched behind a pile of luggage and boxes, firing their guns in all directions, making everything dramatic, as their kind always did.

"Americans..." she and Jonathan mumbled simultaneously.

They didn't have much time to observe their over-the-top behaviour, however, as the horrible robed man with a hook for a hand stumbled towards Jonathan, now a moving wall of fire. Perry went wide-eyed.

"Jonathan—"

Jonathan became paralysed with fear, and they both backed up uncertainly.

Seeing their impending demise, Henderson began to shoot at the hooked man, who was blown over the railing of the barge and into his watery grave below.

"I say, bloody good show, chaps!" Jonathan cheered, smiling at them.

Perry gave him a sardonic look, as he pointed to himself with his thumb in an unfittingly proud manner.

"And did I panic?"

He lifted up the puzzle box in his other hand, and waved it at her.

"I think not."

Before she could shoot a snappy remark in his direction, a thundering stampede of horses and cattle galloped onto the bow.

The Americans fled from her side; she didn't think to return Henderson's gun as she dashed over to Jonathan.

The two of them leaped without hesitation over the other side of the bow, into the dark waters of the Nile.

**XxXxX**

"Hey O'Connell! Looks to me like I got all the horses!"

"Hey Beni! Looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river!"

The five of them— Rick, Evie, Jonathan, Perry, and Warden Hassan on his hands and knees— had trudged up the riverbank, drenched and just getting over the chaos.

Evie had been moaning, saying how they lost everything, tools, equipment... clothes. Her thin white nightgown clung to her skin, and Perry pretended that she didn't see O'Connell 'observing' her figure as they waded through the water.

Then, the Hungarian man (who Perry had seen on the barge) bellowed across the river, only to be bellowed back at by Rick.

Beni had scoffed, and then looked around in realisation that he was, in fact, on the wrong side of the river. He kicked the water angrily, and they turned away from him.

Perry looked around.

"Is everyone alright?"

Evie seemed exhausted, frustrated and upset. Rick seemed fine, and the warden looked close to death (but they ignored him).

"We're fine, we're good," Jonathan breathed.

Perry nodded, and then raised some questions.

"Who were those men? Why did they want the box?"

Jonathan checked that it was in his pocket, and then shrugged.

O'Connell didn't seem so answerless.

"I think I have an idea," he said. "But I'll explain later. Right now, we should keep moving and find some transportation."

They did just that, and by morning they reached a bustling Bedouin trading post, where wishes of camels and clothes were granted.

Whilst Evie was ushered away into a trading tent by some Bedouin women to be (no doubt) beautified further, Perry wasn't so concerned with her clothes, so long as she could get out of her soaking nightdress.

She bought a pair of flat shoes, some black harem pants, a white chiffon blouse, and a colourful pashmina shawl, for the cold desert nights.

Normally, when picking a hijab to wear, she would have chosen a modest black one; however, they were heading into the desert, away from the city, and while she didn't go so far as to go unveiled, Perry was a little more adventurous when purchasing one.

She settled on a silk one, bright blue and white in colour.

This somewhat surprised Jonathan when she walked up to he and Rick. They— or rather, just Jonathan, was making a bit of a ruckus arguing with a camel trader, but he paused his haggling when he saw her, and squinted at her through the sunlight.

"Colourful veil, eh? That's a change." he commented as she stood between he and Rick.

"This entire trip is a change, Mr. Carnahan."

"You've done your shopping, then?"

She nodded, and gestured to her new clothes.

"And I bought us some necessities, too." she said, patting the satchel she now had slung across her torso.

He seemed only vaguely interested by any of this, and then began haggling again. She and Rick shared an exasperated glance; the volume escalated, and the dealer showed no signs of giving in.

"Five camels! I only want five camels!" Jonathan was now shouting at the man.

Both the dealer and he began jumping up and down in rage. Jonathan cursed, and turned to Perry to complain.

"Would you just pay the man?" Rick asked.

Jonathan scowled when his assistant nodded in agreement with the American, and turned to fork over his cash to the dealer.

"I can't believe the price of these fleabags."

O'Connell was the first to grab the reigns of a camel. Perry followed, taking a small, dark one, stroking its dirty head kindly and hoping it wouldn't spit at her.

"Perry, take the warden's camel, and keep up." Jonathan instructed. She obliged, not forgetting that he was her employer no matter how many times she _saved his damn life._

"You know, we probably could have got 'em for free. All we had to do was give them your sister." O'Connell said, as they began to lead the camels away.

"Yes," Jonathan joked. "Awfully tempting, wasn't it?"

O'Connell froze in his tracks as Jonathan laughed and turned away; it took Perry a moment to realise who he was staring at.

Evie, now clothed in a tightly fitted, sheer, black Bedouin dress, was accompanied by a gaggle of women into their midst.

"Awfully." Rick said, belatedly answering Jonathan.

Evie giggled shyly and looked down at the floor, before allowing her smoky eyes to look back up at this man.

He rubbed his camel's snout and grinned.

"Then again..."

Perry smiled cheekily to herself, but neither of them saw it. Romance was blossoming, and though she didn't consider herself a romantic, she found it quite sweet.

Evie, the sophisticated, calamitous, quirky and strangely proud librarian had taken a torch to this gunslinging, loudmouthed, macho American scoundrel.

It was cute. Unexpected, but cute.

She thought back to what Jonathan had said, about finding her a 'boyfriend', and inwardly scoffed.

This chemistry building between Rick and Evie was enough; there was no more room for romance on this expedition.

Besides: they would be in the middle of the Sahara by tomorrow. How delusional did one have to be to dream of finding love in the desert?

**A/N: My apologies for the lack of original scenes here- I'm not trying to write the movie word for word, believe me, however this chapter was just kinda necessary.**

**I hope you are enjoying the story!**

**(Oh, and any reviews are greatly appreciated.)**

**-Anne**


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6**

They travelled for hours through the frying pan that was the Sahara.

Jonathan whined about the camels, how they smelled and how disgusting they were (although Perry found the warden to be _much_ more disgusting than all of the creatures together).

Evie remained upbeat, however, and she and Rick were constantly making eyes at each other.

And then night fell.

Perry congratulated herself on having the common sense to buy that pashmina shawl: the desert quickly became breezy, and the temperature plummeted as fast as the moon rose.

She remained vigilant and alert at all times, fighting off sleep like O'Connell, who didn't look tired in the slightest.

Every once in a while, she and Rick would share a knowing smile. She liked him; she didn't know what it was, but they seemed to share a similarity.

Maybe because they were both streetwise, and they both held that ruthless survivor's instinct that wasn't needed by the wealthy.

They seemed to have a mutual view of many things they came across, a view that the Carnahans certainly didn't possess.

Jonathan fell asleep in an awkward position on his camel as they travelled, at which Perry just snorted and shook her head.

The warden, just behind him, snored thunderously, and at one point woke him up. Jonathan had whipped him with his camel whip, which brought a mirthful tear to Perry's eye through her cackling.

Evie fell asleep, too, and rested her head on Rick's shoulder as their camels rode side by side. He didn't seem to mind; in fact, he seemed quite fond of her position there.

Perry saw this and grinned at him.

"What?" Rick asked.

She shook her head, but continued smirking.

"Nothing," she whispered. "But you can't ignore it."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Ignore what?"

She looked him dead in the eye, and smiled wisely.

"The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread, Mr. O'Connell."

He snorted and shook his head at her, and then gently pushed Evie into a sleeping position on her camel that didn't use him as a headrest.

His eyes didn't leave her— until he looked up at a distant ridge.

Perry followed his gaze; his expression had changed, become more sincere, and it confused her.

Then she spotted them: a dark line of horse-mounted figures, dotting the edge of a cliff of sand, small from afar but menacing in their very presence.

The people were watching them. And they weren't exactly waving and shouting cheers of welcome.

Perry looked to Rick, who eyed these far away men with concern.

"I take it you've encountered those people before?" Perry whispered to him.

He didn't look at her, but she already knew the answer.

**XxXxX**

After everyone awoke (and after they had completed their chilling trip past the mass grave of skeletons of the other seekers of Hamunaptra, something that made Pyrrah pray solemnly), the Sun arose and Rick informed everybody that they were nearing their destination.

This was only confirmed further when Beni Gabor, the Americans, Dr. Chamberlain and the rest of their bloody entourage rode into their path.

Rick, leading their group, and Beni, leading the other, stopped about fifty feet apart form one another.

Beni was on a camel; the rest of his posse were on horses.

"Good morning, my friend." Beni said. Rick ignored him, and stared off into the distance.

The clip-clopping of hooves came to a halt as everybody drew their horses to a stop.

The American trio, Burns, Henderson and Daniels, were sat at the front of their group. Henderson grinned at Perry, who sent a cold glare his way and stared off at the horizon.

"What the hell we doin'?" Daniels asked Beni, somewhat rudely.

"Patience, my good barátom, patience." came the Hungarian's reply.

Perry scoffed.

"Patience? They're American. The entire country has about as much patience asa hungry infant, _hmar_."

Beni squinted at her.

"Did you just call me a _hmar_, little woman?"

She looked away from him and didn't respond, as if he had never been there in the first place.

Henderson, now bored with trying to catch Perry's attention, leaned forward on his horse and addressed Rick.

"Remember our bet, O'Connell. First one to the city. Five hundred cash bucks!"

Rick kept up the ignorance act.

"Hundred of that's yours if you help us win that bet," Daniels told Beni.

"Oh, my pleasure." the Hungarian replied.

Perry scowled

"_Ahbal_..." she mumbled.

He overheard her, and hissed, "_Tozz fiik_!"

She snapped her head around to look at him.

"_Ruuh fi sittiin alf dahya_!"

Beni looked puzzled, and sensing that he couldn't win with this lady, he glanced over at Rick.

"Nice camel," he sneered.

Rick patted his camel's head while Beni flashed his dirty smile, and looked back out to the horizon.

"Get ready for it," O'Connell said.

Evelyn turned to him.

"For what?"

"We're about to be shown the way."

After that, the pace of everything sped up dramatically. The sun rose at the horizon, looming and casting shimmering streaks of amber and rustic orange across the Saharan sands.

In its wake, the city of Hamunaptra— the very existence of which was said by all to be fictional, the city which Terence Bey had called 'fairytales and hokum' to their faces— appeared as if out of thin air.

Perry just watched, in awe, as every archaeologist's dream came true, right before her eyes. The words of those surrounding didn't do her feelings justice.

"Would you look at that?"

"Can you believe it?"

"Hamunaptra."

"Here we go again," Rick said.

There was the thunder of hooves, an all-around shuffle and kerfuffle, and the race was on. O'Connell and Beni went at it; the whipping of rods against camels and horses' backsides could be heard in every direction.

Perry began to ride, too, but she would leave the winning of this race to O'Connell. She laughed at Beni's expense when Rick yanked him off his camel.

"Go, Evie, go! Woo hoo!" Jonathan began to yell.

Perry realised that Evelyn— yes, _Evelyn_, of all of them— had actually overtaken O'Connell in her own run to the city. She was galloping the quickest, and it made Perry feel a little proud. Ms. Carnahan, the quirky but prim and proper English librarian, was living a little.

As Rick galloped over to the city ruins, Perry glanced over her shoulder at the scowling Americans.

"Looks like you boys owe us five hundred dollars!

**A/N: Same deal as Chapter 5. Not the best chapter, but necessary. (Got some squabbling between Beni and Perry in there, though.) Good stuff is to come, my friends.**


	7. Chapter 7

**PSA: This chapter is slightly longer than the others, just to let you know.**

**Also, I would like to clarify a mistake I made in Chapter 5: before I reconstructed parts of the plot, Perry stole one of Henderson's guns, and, as **_**Brunette**_** kindly pointed out, I forgot to remove a part of the chapter that included that bit. So please just ignore it- she has no gun at the start of this chapter, and has yet to use one in the story.**

_**Thank you.**_

**CHAPTER 7**

Soon, tents were set up at the sight of the ruins, and Dr. Chamberlain was barking orders at the diggers the Americans had hired.

Perry did anything Jonathan told her, as usual— which included setting up tents, lugging their new luggage around, settling the camels down and assisting Evie in maneuvering a collection of giant metal dishes into various positions.

"That's the statue of Anubis," she told Perry as they worked. "Its legs go deep underground. According to Bembridge Scholars, that's where we'll find a secret compartment containing the golden book of Amun-Ra."

Out of respect, the younger lady didn't bother to point out that she was well aware that the statue was of Anubis, or that she knew _all about_ Anubis and the Book of Amun-Ra.

Perry looked over her shoulder and noticed that Jonathan was doing his assigned task completely wrong. Goodness, could that man do anything right?

"Err, Jonathan, you're meant to catch the sun with that." she said. When he didn't do anything about it, she groaned and stormed over to him to help polish it off.

"I'm your boss! Don't speak to me like a child!" he snapped.

"You are a child!" she hissed. "Give me that cloth!"

"No!"

"Stop being imbecilic, Mr. Carnahan!"

Rick took her spot beside Evelyn— she smiled when she and Jonathan's bickering subdued and she overheard him giving Evie a gift. Although, she was pretty sure he had stolen it.

After a long time spent correcting all of Jonathan's screw-ups, therefore doubling her workload for everybody else's benefit, Perry followed Evie and the men as they descended below ground level.

"Do you realise we're standing inside a room that no one has entered in over three thousand years?" Evie asked, looking around this place in wonder.

Perry dusted herself off and marveled at their current surroundings. She was an aspiring archaeologist, after all; this gave her a glimpse at living her dreams, far more than fetching drinks for Jonathan ever did.

"Ooh! What is that god-awful stench?" Jonathan asked as he slid down the rope. He sniffed the warden, who was just above him. "Oh..."

Evie dusted the cobwebs off a mirror and angled it in a certain direction, sparking a chain reaction.

"And then there was light..."

The entire room lit up, illuminating every stone, every face, and every sand grain.

"Hey," O'Connell remarked, obviously impressed. "That is a neat trick..."

"Oh my god," Evie whispered. "It's a Sah-Netjer."

"What?"

"A preparation room."

O'Connell stepped further into the area.

"Preparation for what?"

Evie put on a comically spooky voice, that wasn't spooky at all and made Pyrrah chuckle.

"For entering the afterlife..."

O'Connell looked a little perturbed.

"Mummies, my good son." Jonathan told him. "This is where they made the mummies."

They ventured further into the darkness, their flaming torches illuminating the narrow corridors. Cobwebs cloaked every stone wall, and at one point they all searched frantically for the source of an eerie scuttling noise.

"What was that?" Perry and Jonathan asked at the same time.

The two of them were sticking together, excluding the warden and Evie and Rick from their two-person huddle. Perhaps they were equally nervous.

"Sounds like... Bugs." Rick answered, and they journeyed on.

"He said bugs!" Evie hissed.

"What do you mean, bugs?! I hate bugs!" Gad Hassan snapped, obviously spooked.

The next room they entered had a ridiculously low ceiling, so low that O'Connell had to duck slightly. Perry was alright, standing only at five-foot-three, but the small space still made her uneasy. Her claustrophobia began to set in; her clutch on Jonathan's sleeve tightened considerably.

"The legs of Anubis," Evie said. Indeed, she spotted the long, black legs of the jackal god's statue up ahead. "The secret compartment should be hidden somewhere inside here..."

Every wall had columns of golden hieroglyphics engraved into them, and immediately, Perry's mind began to translate them.

She broke free from Jonathan to hold his torch close to the encryptions, but was startled when noises arose around the room.

Strange sounds— deep, echoing whooshes, almost like voices— seemed to reverberate in every corner, and then move, as if they were never there.

But everybody else heard them, too; guns clicked as Jonathan, Rick and the warden whipped their pistols out.

They all backed up into a wall.

"_Anaa khaa-ifa_..." she whispered.

Jonathan put an arm in front of her, protectively. Immediately she felt embarrassed, and thanked herself that he didn't understand what she'd just said. She'd rather die than admit she was scared.

More voices, horrible manly voices, this time closer, swept their surroundings. Rick held up his gun, ready to dart round the corner and fire.

Jonathan got his gun out with one arm, and then seemed to have a second thought.

"Here," he whispered. He handed her his torch again, and then pulled a spare gun out of his back pocket.

"Where did you get that?!" she hissed.

"I... borrowed it." he whispered.

Jonathan seemed to have a funny definition of that word, 'borrowed'... But, nonetheless, she took it off him, balancing the torch in one hand and clutching the gun in the other.

Perry was no gunslinger. She wasn't some loudmouthed, pistol-toting broad, the kind that the Americans would take an interest in; on the streets, she had fought for her life, but that was actual hand-to-hand fighting in the most desperate situations, no bullets involved.

Jonathan knew this, too, so if he was passing her a gun, it meant he was probably as uneasy about this place as she was, if not more.

_Hamunaptra... What a damn destination._

Then, Rick made his move, and they all bolted around the corner, yelling as they came face to face with... Beni and the Americans.

The other men were yelling, too. Perry kept her gun aimed in Daniels' face, but breathed a slight sigh of relief upon seeing that they were, in fact, just staring at the other men.

"You scared the bejesus out of us, O'Connell." Henderson sighed.

"Likewise." Rick replied.

Jonathan lowered his gun, so Perry copied, gingerly.

"Hey!" Burns suddenly said, spotting Evie's gift from Rick. "That's my toolkit!"

"No, I don't think so." Rick snapped.

_I knew he stole it,_ Perry thought, but kept her mouth shut.

Burns stepped forward, but Evie clutched it closer to her chest.

Instinctively and right on time, Perry raised her gun again. Everybody's pistols clicked, and they were all staring into each other's revolvers once more.

Burns seemed to change his mind.

"Okay, perhaps I was mistaken."

Everybody lowered their weapons again.

"Well, have a nice day, gentlemen," Evie's voice piped up. Her tone was a little shaky. "We have a lot of work to be getting on with."

Dr. Chamberlain looked outraged.

"Push off! This is our dig site."

Perry narrowed her eyes at him, glaring daggers through his monocle.

"We got here first." she said, coldly, and raised her gun.

With a million clicking noises, everybody snapped their pistols up once again.

"This here's our statue, friend." Daniels said.

Perry scowled at him. She had thought him rather charismatic at first, but now he had exchanged that for a bad attitude.

"I don't see your name written on it... Pal." Rick responded.

Beni decided to put his two cents in.

"Yes, well, there's only four of you, and fifteen of me..." the Hungarian said.

Perry faintly heard some movement behind her. Evie was doing something with her feet. Kicking stones?

"...Your odds are not so great, O'Connell."

Another round of gun-clicking.

"I've had worse." Rick snapped.

"Yeah, me too." Jonathan added.

Perry and Rick turned their heads to look at him, skeptically. He nodded, but neither were convinced.

"Oh, look, for goodness' sake, let's be nice, children," Evie cooed, stepping between the two rows of guns. "If we're going to play together, we must learn to share."

Standing between Perry and Rick, she saw the English lady eye the American man and wrap her fingers around his forearm to lower it.

"...There are other places to dig."

Judging by the twinkle in her eye, Evelyn Carnahan knew something they didn't.

**XxXxXx**

"Can you believe the size of this place? I thought we were far enough underground before," Jonathan whispered to Perry.

They were following Evie's lead through a series of tunnels, apparently travelling deeper into the City of the Dead.

Perry wasn't yet completely adjusted to the small underground spaces, but she did her best to stay calm and close to Jonathan.

"Evelyn says we'll be directly underneath the Americans." she whispered back. "Sneaky, isn't it?"

They were keeping their conversation quiet, as the warden was trotting along behind them, and neither of them fancied letting him eavesdrop. Rick and Evie were up ahead, but minding their own flirtatious business.

"Sneaky, indeed." Jonathan mumbled.

Perry smirked.

"Then again, sneakiness seems to go hand in hand with the Carnahan name, doesn't it?"

He grinned, and nodded, almost proudly.

"That it does. And the buggers who built this place were sneaky chaps too, weren't they?"

They rounded a corner, and found a narrow set of descending stairs up ahead. Jonathan held his torch out so they could see the way, and offered Perry his arm.

She linked her arm in his, glad of the comforting gesture, and they waded through the darkness behind O'Connell and Evelyn.

Perry hummed.

"Yes. I've heard legends about keeping this 'fictional' city a secret."

Jonathan raised an eyebrow, and brushed a set of cobwebs out of their path with his torch.

"Care to share?"

"Well— supposedly, this is— only the High Priest of Osiris knew of its location," she began to explain. "And a group of warriors fiercely guarded the knowledge of its existence, killing anyone who stumbled upon it."

"Top notch security, then," Jonathan mumbled.

"Yes. Anybody who found Hamunaptra was silenced, so that it's location couldn't be divulged to the public." she said.

The corridors were getting wider and darker as they travelled. They had been walking for quite a while. This pplace really did seem endless. Surely they were close, now.

"Well how did they bury people, then?" he asked. "If everybody who came near the place was bloody murdered, I'm guessing the funeral attendances were pretty poor. Nothing would have ever gotten done."

She giggled.

"There was a hierarchy," she whispered, still chuckling at her boss' strange thought processes. "Slaves did the brutal hard work, and then they were killed by soldiers, who were in turn murdered by priests. That way, nobody knew the exact location."

Jonathan was silent.

Then, he said,

"Lovely."

"Here!" Evie called out to them. A gap in the corridor opened up to a side room, wide and empty except for sand and a couple of stone ornaments.

"This," the librarian said, pointing up at the roof. "Is our gateway to Anubis, ladies and gentlemen."

She and Rick went about positioning the stairs beneath the roof, whilst Perry fetched Jonathan one of the pickaxes O'Connell had been carrying.

"Perry, what happen to those warriors, anyhow?" Jonathan asked as she moved around. He was stood, hands on his hips, staring off at the wall in thought. "The ones that guarded this place?"

Apparently, his head was still filled with visions of Hamunaptra and its delightful system of death.

She blew a coating of sand off the axe.

"Why?" she smirked, and raised an eyebrow. "Are you scared they'll come and find you, Mr. Carnahan?"

He rolled his eyes.

"I'm just asking... And for your information, I'm not scared of anything."

She scoffed, and handed him the pickaxe, which he rested on his shoulder.

"I suppose those warriors did the same thing as the Ancient Egyptians' entire way of life," she shrugged. "Eventually... Disappeared."

**Okay, so I hope everybody's liking this!**

**Now, as for the Arabic in this… From now on, I'll put any translations at the bottom of the page. As for the things I've missed- I'll put a translation at the end of the story, I guess. **

**Thanks for reading!**

_**Arabic:**_

_Anna khaa-ifa – I'm scared (feminine)_


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER 8**

Perry wished they had a spare pickaxe— or at least a fourth object to perch on— but she found herself stuck on the ground, face floating around Jonathan's knees.

"Mr. Carnahan, may I offer my help? I could chip away at that roof just as well as you." she asked him, politely.

Jonathan looked down at her, and blinked. The lazy part of his nature desperately wanted him to seize this opportunity, that was obvious. But he declined her offer.

"No, darling, don't be ridiculous," he said. "What kind of gentleman would I be if I let a little lady such as yourself do all the laborious work?"

Perry smiled at him before he went back to the ceiling, but it only barely managed to cover the bitter expression that followed the remark.

_A little lady such as myself,_ she thought, _would have the darn Book of Amun-Ra by now._

The Carnahan-O'Connell trio began to discuss the Anubis statue, blatantly insulting Americans several times in their conversation and then repeatedly apologising to Rick for it.

Their conversation grew boring to Perry. She wasn't included, and it really wasn't her place to butt in.

Although, she was beginning to lose sight of where 'her place' was. After all, Jonathan's gun was sitting in her satchel right this moment. Not too long ago, she had been pointing it in the face of an American man.

Good heavens, had her departed parents been alive today, what would they have said?

She wandered around the room, kicking pebbles and recalling the things she had lost when their barge burned and sunk.

She had been close to finishing a book, some American novel she had picked up at a street stall of found objects.

'The Great Gatsby', it was called— published four years ago or so, according to the man who had sold it to her.

It was a delightful read, she found, and had been rather enjoying reading it after running around for Jonathan all day. English literature had been difficult for her to understand at first, but now Perry prided herself on having a good knowledge of some of the books produced in the western world.

But her copy of it— the author's name was Fitzmont? Fitzgerald?— was lying charred in the Nile, now.

She wondered how it would end.

"—where did our smelly little friend go?"

She was roused from her thoughts by Jonathan's question. Indeed, they had arrived with five people, and now only four remained in their company.

She hated Gad Hassan with a passion, but wouldn't wish getting lost in Hamunaptra's depths on even her enemies.

Before long, everybody's energy was running low, and so a break was taken. Rick and Evie had taken a seat beside one another, and were chatting away happily.

"Are you good at golf, Jonathan?"

"I'm a champion golfer, my dear. Champion."

Jonathan had decided to play golf, and Perry was the perfect caddy.

Every time he hit a stone, she would sweep around the room and fetch him a new one. Placing it at his feet, she would then move away enough to avoid getting her eyes taken out by his pickaxe.

Funnily enough, she found it to be a good way to keep her mind off the fact that they were still underground; her claustrophobia had been creeping in earlier, but Jonathan's antics seemed to keep things simple.

"I think your sister and O'Connell are having a good time." she whispered to him, pretending to be adjusting her newest rock's position.

He paused while she stood up, his face a picture of confusion.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Perry smirked, shrugged, and stepped back so he could continue his game.

He brushed off her comment and took a swing.

"...Oh, and you know how they took out your brains?"

Apparently, Evelyn was explaining the process of mummification to poor Rick.

"Evie, I don't think we need to know this." Jonathan whined.

Perry sighed.

"Again— you call yourself an archaeologist, Mr. Carnahan?"

He ignored her. Evie went on.

"They'd take a sharp, red-hot poker, stick it up your nose, scramble things about a bit, then rip it all out through your nostrils."

"The ancient Egyptians believed the brain was of little importance. They threw it away after that." Perry added.

Rick cringed.

"That's gotta hurt."

Evie smiled at his innocent comment.

"Its called mummification. You'll be dead when they do this."

While she explained this, Perry found a rather sizeable stone and dusted it off. Pleased with her finding, she put it proudly at her boss' feet before stepping back to watch him swipe at it.

"For the record, if I don't make it out of here, don't put me down for mummification." Rick said to Jonathan, who drew his pickaxe up.

"Likewise."

He swung.

The massive rock bounded through the air, its jagged form gaining velocity until it met the immovable object in its path: the ceiling.

Apparently, this ceiling was not so immovable at all.

Perry shrieked and jumped in fright when the entire section of the ceiling they had been chipping away at collapsed, falling inwards and almost crushing Rick and Evie.

Jonathan peered at where his rock had hit the roof; Perry gaped, wordless and slack jawed, in the opposite direction as dust arose from the wreckage.

Jonathan cringed, and turned to look at what now lay in their presence.

"Mr. Carnahan," she breathed as he stepped up to her side. "What did you do?"

Evie coughed.

"Oh my God," she said. "It's a ...It's a sarcophagus. Buried at the base of Anubis."

At the sight of this massive black sarcophagus now lying in their midst, a terrible, terrible feeling rose up in Pyrrah's gut. She felt lightheadedness sweep in, and a sickening surge of anxiety.

She shook her head.

This wasn't good.

And this wasn't claustrophobia, either. It was like a primal instinct was screaming at her, telling her to _get away from that sarcophagus_.

They had uncovered something they weren't supposed to find.

"He must have been someone of great importance." Evie's voice was soft on her ears, but her words were anything but soothing. "Or he... did something very naughty."

**XxXxXx**

Within moments, Evie and Rick were enthusiastically dusting off the top of the sarcophagus, trying to get a better look at the hieroglyphics.

Perry was pacing back and forth around five feet behind them, refusing to approach the sarcophagus.

"_La, la, la, la_..." she repeated to herself, shaking her head. "No, no, no..."

Jonathan grabbed her shoulders.

"Will you relax?" he whispered.

"I can't relax. I have a terrible feeling about this." she whispered back, and attempted to shrug away from him to resume her pacing.

He tightened his grip on her arms to stop her from doing so.

"Why? Look, just tell me what's wrong."

She was reluctant to provide an answer, because she herself didn't quite know what the problem was.

"My gut just says we shouldn't mess with that sarcophagus."

Just as was typical of him, Jonathan rolled his eyes.

"Come on, darling, don't let superstition make you a kill-joy, now! You'll ruin everybody's good time."

She glared at him, and he left her alone to go look at his sister's progress.

"So. Who is it?"

"He That Shall Not Be Named." Evie read aloud.

Perry stopped pacing. She searched for signs of dread on the faces of her companions, but nobody seemed as unsettled as she.

Rick blew on the lid, and then pointed to whatever he had unveiled.

"This looks like some sort of a lock."

"Well, whoever's in here sure wasn't getting out." Jonathan said, eyeing the coffin.

"No kidding. It'll take a month to crack into this thing without a key." O'Connell said.

Perry scuttled over to Jonathan's side.

"We should leave it, then! No key! No opening the sarcophagus! No problem!"

"Perry—"

"We should not be doing this, Mr. Carnahan!" she whispered, her eyes pleading with him.

He looked for a moment as if she had gotten through to him, as if her unabashed fear was striking a warning flare somewhere within his mind. But then his sister spoke, and he was distracted again.

"A key? A key! A key, that's what he was talking about!" Evie announced, obviously realising something.

She ducked down, out of their view, and Rick turned to Perry and Jonathan in confusion.

"Who?"

Jonathan shrugged and shook his head. Peering over his shoulder, his assistant still had nothing but a sulking face to offer.

"The man! The man on the barge, the one with the hook. He was looking for a key..." Evelyn told them, reappearing on her feet.

She now held Jonathan's iron puzzle box in her hands— the one that he had rushed to Perry's home in the slums in the middle of the night upon finding— and was fiddling with it intently.

"That's mine!" Jonathan whined.

Evie opened it, and placed the intricate puzzle piece onto the lock which O'Connell had uncovered, before smiling proudly. It certainly fit.

Her pride was cut short, however, when the horrible screams of Warden Gad Hassan grew suddenly loud and close.

Rick grabbed his gun, and headed for the back of the room. Evie rushed after him.

"Come on, Perry!" Jonathan hissed, yanking her sleeve in the direction of the door.

She clumsily whipped her gun out of her satchel and ran ahead of him whilst he snatched up the key, only to find a horrifying sight awaiting her in the corridor.

O'Connell had his pistol pointed at Gad Hassan, who was clutching his bald head and screaming in agony. He darted past them, knocking Perry into Jonathan and almost lighting her headscarf on fire with his torch, and continued running.

They all stared in horror as he writhed and yelped in pain, before slamming head first into a stone wall. He collapsed with a thud.

It was a sickening noise, and then silence. The warden lay motionless.

Jonathan- still clutching Perry's shoulders a little too tightly- Perry, Rick and Evelyn all remained wordless as the realisation dawned that the man was dead.

**XxXxXx**

The warden's body landed in the desert sand with a thud.

"I can't believe he smelled this bad _before_ death." Jonathan mumbled.

Jonathan and Rick had helped her carry the body out of the city's underground to be buried in the desert just outside of Hamunaptra's walls.

Perry had demanded they do this, but Jonathan was less than eager to participate.

"Why are we doing this, again?" he moaned.

Perry snatched a shovel off him and began to dig into the sand.

"He may have been a disgusting, stinky pervert," she said. "But he should still get a half-decent burial."

Jonathan groaned, and he and O'Connell began to dig into the sand as well.

"On the day of judgement, Allah will make his body rise from the ground to join him in Paradise. It is disrespectful to leave him out in the open." Perry explained.

The men didn't seem particularly overjoyed with her answer, but it stopped any further complaining.

The moon was high, and the desert cold.

The Americans' ever-loud voices could be heard from the camp; Evelyn had stayed behind to light a fire and protect their belongings. With shady characters hanging around— like Beni Gabor, for example— they weren't going to leave their possessions unguarded.

As the thought of stealing passed through her mind, a question arose from Perry.

"Where did you get these shovels?" she asked.

Rick looked at Jonathan for an answer, too.

Jonathan shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck guiltily, trying to come up with an answer.

"I. Uh... I borrowed them."

Perry narrowed her eyes and scowled at him.

After a relatively short time of digging, there was a crater in the ground just big enough to fit Gad Hassan's lifeless body into.

"I asked one of you to get me a white sheet?" Perry asked, catching her breath.

"Ah, yes," Jonathan said, turning to pick up the sheet from the ground. "Right here."

He handed a lengthy throw with a lace trim, not dissimilar to a tablecloth, to Perry. She unfolded it, and then looked to him in question.

"Where did you get this sheet, Mr. Carnahan?"

He pointed to it, and chuckled awkwardly.

"That? Oh, yes, that. Funny story, I, um, borrowed that, too."

"Jonathan!"

His shoulders dropped and he groaned exasperatedly.

"They didn't need that sheet!" he cried out. "Why do they even have a big white tablecloth in the middle of the bloody desert, Perry?!"

Perry glared at him furiously, despite not entirely disagreeing with him, before kneeling to wrap the cloth around the warden.

With a last, massive heave, they rolled his body into the pit.

"Alright," Rick breathed, dropping his shovel. "I'm gonna head back to the camp, check on your sister. You guys can fill this in yourselves, right?"

Jonathan and Perry nodded, and mumbled their unenthusiastic goodbyes as he set off towards Hamunaptra.

When he was far enough away, Perry turned to Jonathan.

"He's in love with your sister, Jonathan." she whispered, a small smile breaking out across her face.

Jonathan frowned.

"What? Who? O'Connell?"

She sighed.

"Yes!"

Perry stopped shovelling sand into the grave, and held out her arms, waiting for Jonathan to have some sort of epiphany. He shook his head.

"Nah, I don't think so."

"He is! And guess what? Evie's falling for him, too." she whispered.

Jonathan stood upright, folding his hands on the handle of his shovel. He squinted at her.

"She is not."

Perry smirked, and strolled over to his side. Playfully, she poked his shoulder.

"Face it, Mr. Carnahan. Your little sister is in love with a big, handsome, American scoundrel."

Jonathan blew a raspberry with his lips, acting as if the notion of such a thing was ridiculous.

"Well... That... I— Perry, that's not true!"

She laughed, shaking her head at his denial. To him, Evelyn was the dramatic but loveable little sister, easily tricked and always ready to bicker with him.

However, he had looked after her since their parents died. He _was_ the big brother.

The concept of a man like Rick— to whom Evie had been introduced in a prison, of all places— entering his little sister's life and taking his spot as the most important man... Well, it surely wasn't the most comforting thought.

Jonathan was now furiously piling sand into the warden's grave.

"Will you get back to the task at hand, please? It was your idea to bury the bastard, and I don't want to be here all night!"

Perry quit trying to convince him, and picked up her shovel once more.

"When you realise I'm right," she added, quieter now. "Just give Evelyn her space. Leave she and O'Connell alone."

"Oh, whatever, Pyrrah." he hissed. "...I need a drink."

Eventually, the grave was complete. Jonathan patted the burial space with his shovel, and they stood above it, solemnly staring at the ground.

"Care to say a few words?" he asked.

Perry shook her head.

"Nope. But while we walk back to camp, may I tell you about this book I was reading?"

And so they headed back to Hamunaptra again, foolishly thinking that the million constellations of stars watching from the heavens were the only ones who could see them.

**Arabic:**

_La - No_


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER 9**

The fire built by Evelyn wasn't half bad; it kept them warm enough, and the crackling flames illuminated the dead city in pretty shades of amber light and flickering shadows.

Evie was sat next to her brother, hugging a blanket around her shoulders. Jonathan had courteously given Perry his own jacket for warmth.

"His obsession with Daisy is romantic, you see. It's all-consuming. He hasn't seen her in years, but she never left his mind. That's true love." Perry was saying to the Carnahans.

"True love?" Jonathan repeated, belittling her point. "I understand he's supposed to be all dizzy with this dame, but to me he just seems like a crazy stalker."

Evie tutted.

"Oh, Jonathan, you've just never been in love before."

"I have too!"

This exclamation, even if it had been made solely to defend his view of a book character, made Perry suddenly curious. There wasn't an awful lot she knew about Jonathan's life before he was an archaeologist, or living in Egypt. Perhaps some lady had captured Jonathan Carnahan's heart, once.

"When?" she asked.

He sat up straight and cleared his throat. Waving a hand around to stall, it took him a while to decide to answer.

"There was a girl, I'll have you know, that I carried quite a torch for. Gretchen, her name was."

There was a pause, a hollow minute in which sadness drifted between them and lingered for too long. Perry had questions, but was worried it would be rude to pry.

"And... What happened to Gretchen?" she eventually asked.

"Ah, I couldn't hold onto her, I suppose." Jonathan answered, staring away into the flames.

"Alright, so say you had another chance to make Gretchen yours, even if she had a new life. Wouldn't you take it?" Evelyn asked, hopefully.

Jonathan looked up at the sky, thinking for a while. Finally, he shook his head.

"No. Gatsby should've left Daisy well enough alone, in her nice house, with her rich husband, and her little girl- another man's child, by the way."

Evelyn huffed.

"What, with that dreadful Tom Buchanan character?" she snapped, looking between her brother and Perry for any agreement. "He had a mistress— and she didn't really love him! Perry, please tell me Daisy ends up with Gatsby?"

Perry shrugged.

"I never finished the book..." She smiled at the thought of Gatsby's triumph. "But I bet they end up together. It _has_ to have a happy ending. How else could it possibly finish?"

"Well, maybe she stays with the Buchanan fellow." Jonathan suggested, looking to end the discussion. "He had a good job, business ideas, and lots of potential, didn't he? She's pretty materialistic, if you ask me, and most women don't care too much about an affair or two."

Evelyn groaned in disdain.

"Yes, you keep telling yourself that, Jonathan..."

Perry smirked.

"If women cared more about men's jobs than their morals, Mr. Carnahan," she stated, "then perhaps our Warden Hassan might not have been so lonely."

At the mention of the warden, who had been alive that morning but would now never walk on the face of the earth again, they fell silent.

Perry stared into the blue hue at the bottom of the fire, suddenly as depressed as the siblings at her side.

It was several minutes before Evie spoke again.

"What do you suppose killed him?"

Jonathan answered her.

"Did you ever see him eat?"

O'Connell returned, then, from his trip to the Americans' campsite.

"Seems that our American friends had a little misfortune of their own today," Rick announced, placing his shotgun down. "Three of their diggers were, uh... melted."

"What?"

"How?"

Perry grimaced.

_"Laysat jai'yedah_..." she mumbled.

Jonathan suddenly became aware of her presence again, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to give them a comforting squeeze.

"Salt acid. Pressurised salt acid?" Rick explained. "Some kind of ancient booby trap."

"Maybe this place really is cursed." Jonathan said. As if on cue, a ghostly wind swept in and darkened their fire for a second.

They all froze at the eerie coincidence, until Evie snapped them out of it.

"Oh, for goodness' sake, you three!"

"You don't believe in curses, huh?" Rick asked her, prodding the fire to get it stoked up again.

"No, I don't." she responded. "I believe if I can see it and I can touch it, then it's real. That's what I believe."

Perry scoffed.

"Well, I was born in this country, and my ancestors were all born in this country, and I was raised with the stories of this country, and I believe we are digging graves for ourselves just by being here." she snapped.

Rick reloaded his rifle and stared intensely into the distance.

"I believe in being prepared."

_Oh, Rick. So dramatic._

There was another pause.

"Well, let's see what our good friend the warden believed in," Jonathan said.

He snapped his fingers at Perry, who sighed and retrieved the warden's rucksack and passed it to her employer. Book club was over— back to being a servant, now. Jonathan proceeded to rummage through it.

Just as she had settled into a sleepy train of thought about Jonathan's poor morals and Daisy Buchanan and the mysterious Gretchen, Jonathan yelped and yanked his hand out of the bag.

"What?! What?!" she screamed.

Her heart rate increased tenfold, until she was sure she'd feel the shooting pains of a heart attack any second.

"Broken glass."

Perry shut her eyes. She'd had enough of this. Constantly being on edge. She just wanted to go home.

Jonathan pulled the bottle out and held it in the firelight so as to read the label. "Glenlivet. Twelve years old. He may have been a stinky fellow, but he had good taste."

He took a swig, and they all relaxed again. Jonathan tapped Perry on the shoulder and offered her a drink, which she respectfully declined.

"Not permitted, Mr. Carnahan," she reminded him, quietly.

"Right, right..."

He seemed happy enough to have the rest of it to himself, anyway.

As he drank, a loud ruckus sounded from the area of the ruins in which the Americans were camped.

Immediately envisioning a number of horrific problems that could arise out here in Hamunaptra, Perry reached into her satchel and retrieved the gun Jonathan had given her earlier.

She jumped to her feet alongside O'Connell. That must have been their survival instinct kicking in.

"Stay here," she heard him instruct Evie, but his words lost importance and prominence after that. She was well ahead of him, eager to see what the fuss was about.

She was sick of Hamunaptra. Sick of the constant presence of death, the fear it instilled in them all. Sick of everybody wanting to open that bloody sarcophagus.

At this point, with Jonathan's gun out, the idea of shooting somebody seemed damn appealing.

These thoughts, however, turned out to be put to the test when the scene ahead unfolded in her view.

Horse hooves were thundering, the whinnying of cattle intermingling with the screams of the men from the other campsite as a full-blown invasion took place.

Figures that fleeted like shadows across the ruins were those of armed men, whose dark robes contrasted against their sandy surroundings but blended into the depths of the night beyond. Some held shotguns, firing out and killing their targets with one blast at a time. Others had swords, their blades hissing as they sliced through flesh and deflected their opponents' bullets.

They tore through the campsite, shooting and slashing and striking terror into the Americans and their diggers.

Perry came to a halt. These men— had she seen them on the journey through the Sahara?

Yes, these were the men she saw, in the dead of night, watching them from that far off ridge. She was certain of it.

Rick knew them, somehow. They had followed them here, and they clearly weren't happy.

A hail of bullets dotted the sand around her feet. She froze, her mind blank with shock and her body paralysed.

Pain never came, though— she hadn't been shot, and so quick thinking set in alongside the adrenaline rush.

Taking cover behind a thick pillar, Perry peeked out around the stone and targeted the man who had fired at her. Perhaps it was beginner's luck, but her first shot clipped his shoulder and sent him tumbling to the ground.

Glancing around, she noticed that Evie wasn't in her view. Neither was Jonathan, who was probably hiding somewhere with his booze.

Rick, however, looked like he could use some help, so she darted out into the middle of the war zone. Here in No Man's Land, she was flanked by horse riding men at every side.

Before Perry could get to his aid, though, Rick shot the horse of one of the tribesmen.

The horse buckled and the robed man fell into a tent. A battle ensued between he and O'Connell, whose following bullets were deflected by a few precise movements of his sword.

This man had his back to her. She had an open shot at the back of his head— if she aimed correctly, Rick would have one less man to deal with. Plus, if he turned, there'd be only a quick slice of that sword and her head would be off.

Picturing her untimely, violent death— and how utterly useless Mr. Carnahan would be without her— she raised her pistol, only to receive some hollow clicking noises at the pull of the trigger.

"What the—" Out of bullets. No spare ammunition.

Hearing her attempted gunfire, the man turned: Rick was no longer his primary target.

Pyrrah eyed his weapon. What was that he was holding? She had seen it before, pictures in a library book... A khopesh? Yataghan sword? Turkish Kilij?

_Oh, this is no time to be reminiscing about books, Pyrrah!_ she thought, mentally scolding herself.

Yes, this man had definitely locked eyes on her now. She was a target, and she had no defense.

Apart from her fists.

If there was one thing Pyrrah Ananaka knew how to do, it was throw a punch. Good, old fashioned, bare-knuckle brawls were her forte, and so the stumbling tribesman to her left (who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time) hadn't seen it coming when her fist flew straight into his face.

Maybe Terence Bey had a point when he named her 'violent girl'.

He collapsed. His sword fell to the ground, and suddenly she had a matching weapon with which to face her oncoming attacker.

"_Astugh-fer-Allah_..." she breathed.

She raised her new sword, unsteadily, readjusting the way her fingers grasped the handle several times. It was heavy, and felt as if it was twice the size of her, but she held it straight forward as the dark figure of her opponent approached.

She made the first move, a swing to his right side, which he blocked easily.

Metal scraped against metal; this man was strong, very powerful, but she was certain he was equally as surprised by her own strength.

He began to push harder, move faster, almost impatiently. Not yet had his sword cut her; she kept her eyes locked on the blade, practically in a trance so as to keep herself alive. But in doing so, she had not looked up at his face. Did she dare?

_He knows you're intimidated,_ Perry thought to herself. _Look at him! Show him you're unafraid!_

Their swords locked.

This was her opportunity. She looked up into the man's face, prepared to snarl or spit or do anything to win this battle.

Instead, she found herself staring into a remarkably familiar face.

Perry's expression softened. Gritted teeth and a deep frown morphed into a muddled look of shock and confusion.

What she had expected this man to look like, she had no idea. He had been a faceless attacker, like the rest of these tribesmen.

But she was entirely taken back by what she had ended up face to face with.

He was handsome— _incredibly_ handsome, which jarred her thoughts for a start.

Black tattoos were marked upon his cheekbones, but she didn't have time to distinguish their symbols as being either Arabic or hieroglyphic.

Sloped nose, refined bones... His entire face was perfectly symmetrical, like Bernini had carved him straight from marble.

Their swords slid apart, and he swung again. She blocked it; he deflected her lunge that followed.

His eyes, it seemed, were distracting her.

They were perhaps the most beautiful set of eyes she had ever gazed into. A bistre brown, they were the colour of the ink used by the Old Masters in their works of art. She hadn't known eyes so captivating before, so soft and sharp at the same time.

Yes, he was a handsome fellow. Lethal and handsome.

But perhaps what shocked Pyrrah most about this man— who she had never met before just now— was that he looked inexplicably _familiar_.

Every one of those dazzling features already held a place in her mind's eye, and so her brain spent the duration of their battle attempting to place him within some long forgotten memory.

The tribesman was like somebody from a dream. Somebody that she had known before, in a time gone by, somebody lost but now found once more.

And what further troubled her was the fact that she had never used anything more than a dagger in combat— and that was during a particularly messy, bloody scuffle when she was fifteen— yet she had been dueling this man for quite some time.

Unless he was... testing her.

There was a gunshot.

Rick had reappeared, and was firing at her opponent, who had an enemy on both sides, now.

The man removed his attention from Pyrrah for a moment in order to focus on Rick.

Suddenly, things sped up very quickly, and then stopped altogether.

O'Connell fired at the man. With a spark, his sword flew out of hands, slicing through the air. The edge of it tore right into Pyrrah's face.

She felt a surge of pain. Her jaw clenched, she cried out and shut her eyes, but it wouldn't disappear.

Between blinks, Perry watched the tribesman retrieve another sword. Rick became disarmed, and then—

She heard a crackling, hissing noise. O'Connell was brandishing a lit stick of dynamite.

Her opponent, obviously one with a deal of common sense, decided that this dynamite wasn't going to do anyone any good.

He lowered his sword and backed up.

"Enough!" he shouted out to everybody. The fighting seemed to cease. "We will shed no more blood."

His voice was smooth and deep, his rich accent matching Perry's own.

Perry stood behind Rick and his magic dynamite, sword hanging limply at her side, chest heaving, face growing hot with the rush of blood to the injury.

The man, her former opponent, eyed her, frowning deeply. He didn't look angry, though. Could he be... _concerned?_

No. That was in her head. Those eyes had gotten to her.

He tore his gaze away from her to stare back at O'Connell.

"But you must leave! Leave this place or die!"

The dynamite was going to fizzle out.

He stepped away, calmly, as if he had never been fighting at all, and mounted his white steed.

"You have one day," he announced as he did so. "_Yalla! Imshi!_"

Sparing Pyrrah and Rick one last glance, he galloped off, the other men joining him.

And suddenly they were left in silence, with the crackling of flames replacing the thunder of gunfire.

Pyrrah dropped her sword.

O'Connell blew out the dynamite fuse. Evelyn, Perry now realised, was lying a small distance away, unmoving on the floor but in no harm at all. Rick swiped a shotgun out of her clutch when he dashed to her side, scooping her up into his arms.

"You alright?"

_Oh, for God's sake, Rick. She's fine and dandy._

Perry raised her hand to her face and brought it back, finding that her fingers were dripping with dark blood. It seemed as if her face had been sliced right open, the skin split neatly in a gash that curved from her temple right along her cheekbone.

Evelyn was fine, and O'Connell was fussing over her... And here she was, bleeding all over the place, her face butchered, and last person to even hint at showing concern for her was the bloody swordsman?

She was officially sick and tired of this trip to Hamunaptra.

**a/n: Okay so holy cannoli I was worried about this chapter. But here it is! Ardeth finally showed up!**

**I hope you like it ****please don't kill me****.**

**And a massive thank you to everybody for the reviews and follows and favourites! You're all awesome!**

**-Anne**

_**Arabic:**_

_Laysat jai'yedah - not good_

_Astugh-fer-Allah - asking for forgiveness from Allah_

_[Combination of Astughfar (asking for forgiveness) and Allah.]_

_Yalla - come on/ hurry up_

_Imshi - let's go_


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER 10**

"See! Thats just proves it! Old Seti's fortune's gotta be under this sand!" Daniels yelled, his thick, southern American accent stricken with fear and anger.

Pyrrah sighed and folded her arms. They were all imbeciles. Every one of them.

And where the hell was Jonathan?

Where had Mr. Bloody Carnahan been when she needed him?

"For them to protect it like this, you just know there's treasure down there!" Henderson said.

Rick looked thoughtful. He was still holding Evie, who had her hands placed on his chest affectionately.

"No, these men are desert people. They value water, not gold." he mused, looking slightly confused.

Perry groaned in frustration.

"Are you all idiots?" she hissed, catching everybody's attention. "They weren't protecting _gold_! They were protecting us. From whatever the hell is in this God-forsaken place!"

They fell silent.

"We have to leave." she said, sternly.

Rick sighed. Nobody agreed with her. They weren't leaving.

She pointed a stern finger at Rick.

"_Hebel_!" she spat. Then, she turned to the Americans and Dr. Chamberlain. "All of you! _Anta ghabi!_ You should heed those men's warnings!"

And with that, Pyrrah stalked off in the direction of their campsite, leaving everybody in an awkward, frightened silence.

"Jonathan?" she whispered, nearing the little campfire.

"Perry?"

She frowned, and turned in every direction. That had definitely been Jonathan's voice, but he was nowhere to be seen.

"Perry! I'm here!"

Behind a crumbling stone wall, her boss was on his hands and knees, crawling around like a lost dog.

_Should I even bother asking what he's up to?_ she thought.

"Mr. Carnahan, what are you doing down there?" she sighed, traipsing over to his side. "You're going to ruin your suit."

He was squinting at the floor, running his hands along the sand.

"J-just come and help me." he whispered, words a little slurry.

Confused but too tired to argue, Perry dropped to her knees and copied her employer's actions. He really was a funny man.

"You know, there are twenty five species of scorpions in Egypt, Jonathan?" she asked him, pausing to yawn widely. "Including the Leiurus quinquestriatus?"

He frowned at the sand.

"Loo-r-ss-quin—what-what?"

"The deathstalker scorpion." she answered, simply. "The third most venomous scorpion in the world."

Jonathan took his hands out of the sand, then, and cleared his throat.

"Well, that doesn't sound like the friendliest of little buggers, does it? I was actually—"

He glanced up at his assistant and stopped speaking.

"Perry," he asked. "What happened to your face?"

She breathed out heavily.

_If you had been there, you would know, wouldn't you?_

"One of those swordsmen clipped it. Rick shot his sword out of his hand, and I was... in the way."

Jonathan tutted, mumbling to himself about bandits of some sort, and patted his jacket pockets until he found his handkerchief.

"You're telling me I'll ruin my suit with sand," he scoffed. "While you're bleeding all over your new headscarf. Come here, Dumb Dora."

He crossed his legs and dabbed at the blood on her face with the cloth. She hissed at the contact.

"By the way, do you have any idea who those rascals were?" he asked her.

She grimaced at the pain, but managed to stay still enough for him to continue his work.

"Just because I am Egyptian doesn't mean I know every desert tribe, Mr. Carnahan," she answered. "There are always mysterious folks from the plains coming through Cairo. However, these men were very... Unique."

"What makes you say that?"

"I'm not sure. The way they operated... They certainly weren't random thugs," she mused, twisting her lips in thought. "It sounds silly, but... They made me think of the warriors that guarded Hamunaptra all that time ago."

Jonathan looked like he was considering this. Tipsy, but considering it nonetheless.

"The guards we spoke about?"

She hummed.

"You said yourself that this place is cursed, Jonathan. I'm not saying those men were part of the alliance of warriors that kept the city secret. But if they were indeed the same men that attacked Mr. O'Connell's garrison on his last visit to Hamunaptra, that can't be a coincidence."

Jonathan sighed. He was obviously too tired to care, and the conversation had grown boring.

"We might need to stitch you up, darling," he said, changing the subject. "Say, does that Chamberlain fellow practice medicine?"

"I wouldn't trust him."

"Hold this."

He passed her the bloody hankie and tucked her hair behind her ears, pulling her hijab back into its proper place. In the middle of the fight, it had fallen down, but Jonathan readjusted it as best he could.

"There," he said, smiling proudly at his work. "Good as new. And the scar that leaves will just be the cat's pyjamas, sweetheart!"

He tapped her on the nose.

Perry couldn't help but giggle.

"The what?"

"Cat's pyjamas," Jonathan repeated. "The bee's knees? You know, the goat's whiskers?"

She descended into a fit of laughter, then, lost as to what any of those strange terms meant, but finding Jonathan's use of them utterly hilarious. Perhaps the post-adrenaline-rush descent was making her delirious.

"The duck's quack?!"

Jonathan soon joined her in the chuckling, and since he had consumed quite a bit of whiskey earlier, found it all the funnier.

Their moment of hilarity was interrupted when they heard voices nearby. American accents, alongside the distinct voices of Rick and Evie.

"Are we combining forces, tonight?" Jonathan mumbled to her.

Perry became very serious, and looked him in the eyes.

"Those men told us to leave this place or die," she whispered, urgently trying to get a last word in. "Mr. Carnahan, I believe we should—"

"I found it!"

Triumphantly, Jonathan plucked the cork from the warden's bottle of Glenlivet out of the sand beside Pyrrah's feet.

_So that was what he'd been looking for._

Unsteadily, he stood up and wobbled around beside the wall, on which his bottle of booze was standing. He lodged the cork in its top.

"Time to celebrate!"

Perry frowned, and stood up, too.

"Jonathan—"

"Perry, darling, we'll talk tomorrow. For now, let's just drink!"

Within an hour he was asleep, unconscious and cuddling the bottle of liquor.

Since everybody else had hit the sack too, excepting Rick and Evie, Perry stoked the fire beside him, propped her boss' head up with a makeshift shawl-pillow, and lay at his side to stare up at the starry desert sky.

She was annoyed, to say the least. Jonathan— however sweet and funny he was, and however much he made her giggle at the end of the day— wasn't taking her thoughts on the tribesmen seriously, or the notion of their departure from this place.

And the fact that Evelyn was constantly being fussed over by O'Connell had frustrated her greatly.

It was obvious that they were smitten with each other— this, she found awfully sweet— but the 'damsel in distress' act had really aggravated her this evening.

She pushed the annoyance to the back of her mind, however, chalking it up to her disappointment in Jonathan's absence for most of the tribesmen's invasion.

Listening to the sounds of Evelyn's laughter and ignoring the dull throbbing of her cheek, she decided she was leaving tomorrow.

Those tribesmen had not attacked them without reason. Her encounter with that man- their leader, it seemed- had been so… strange.

Drained of energy, she didn't even attempt to sort out her clouded thoughts of him.

But she could hear his voice, playing over in her head repeatedly like when Jonathan had broken his record player.

_Leave this place, or die._

She had told Jonathan that the warriors who protected Hamunaptra had just disappeared. Now, she was questioning that claim.

She glanced at Jonathan, sleeping soundly, and prayed that he would make the wise decision and follow her. The Carnahans were like her family— hell, even O'Connell was growing on her— and if they weren't careful, they were going to end up dead.

**XxXxXx**

Perry packed her satchel at dawn, but decided to try to convince the Carnahans to leave Hamunaptra with her before her departure.

Unfortunately, the plan got slightly sidetracked.

Somewhere along the way, she had been roped into standing by as Evie marvelled over the lid of the sarcophagus.

"I've dreamt about this since I was a little girl!" the librarian gasped with delight as she eyed it.

O'Connell gave her an odd look.

"You dream about dead guys?"

The sarcophagus, which was now propped upright, lay ominously before them.

In 1923, Perry had been seventeen years old, excited by the adult world and employed for only a year by Jonathan Carnahan.

Howard Carter's uncovering of King Tutankhamun's tomb had been a mere rumour in Cairo for a year or so, but she vividly recalled the world's leading archaeologists and Egyptologists travelling from far and wide to get a piece of the action that February.

Although a common girl such as herself was never allowed to see the excavation process, descriptions of the pharaoh's sarcophagus had reached her by word of mouth, and she had even been so lucky as to be shown a photograph by Jonathan.

It was marvellous, constructed and adorned with gold and colourful glass and precious stones, designed to celebrate and honour the once great king.

_This_ coffin was probably the exact opposite of such a description.

There was nothing glamourous whatsoever about this black tomb hidden beneath Anubis' statue, nothing resembling the wonderful side of Egypt's history that had inspired her so when she was a girl.

No, this was not the tomb of a celebrated person. And this was only stressed further when Evie pointed out that his sacred spells had been chiselled off.

"Yes, I'm all tears," Jonathan droned, clearly not able to care less, as he fixed the puzzlebox-key into the lid and cranked it. "Now let's see who's inside, shall we?"

Perry grabbed his shoulder before he moved to the lid.

"Please, Mr, Carnahan! This is a bad idea." she insisted, her words quick and frantic.

"Oh, lighten up, Perry!" he snapped. "I've told you a million times, nothing bad's going to happen."

Much to her chagrin, he shooed her away from him, and so she simply stood by whilst Jonathan and Rick grabbed hold of the lid.

The sarcophagus hissed.

Evelyn was just as focused as Perry, but far more fascinated than apprehensive.

With a bit of a struggle, they heaved it free, but Evie shrieked as the mummy within sprang forth out of a cloud of dust.

"God, I hate it when these things do that!" she snapped.

Pyrrah fixed her eyes on the mummified body. He— this man, buried symbolically at the base of the god of the afterlife— was grotesque, a rotten, twisted, deformed corpse with a tortured face.

Yes, he was a mummy; but something about this mummy in particular was... different. Not right.

"Is he supposed to look like that?" Rick asked.

Everybody moved in closer to peer at the body, including Perry, who was terrified but rather curious.

"No," Evie answered. "I've never seen a mummy look like this before. He's still... Still..."

"Juicy." Jonathan, Rick and Perry all said at once.

Evelyn looked perturbed.

"Yes," she said, staring with fascination. "He must be more than three thousand years old... And, it... Well, it looks as if he's still... decomposing."

"That's impossible," Perry muttered, squinting at the corpse. "I've seen the Old Kingdom mummies that W.M. Flinders uncovered. They were younger than this body, but not half as fleshy as him."

"Hey, look at that," Rick called, crouching down beside the sarcophagus' lid. The inside of it was adorned with deep scratches.

Evie joined his side and knelt to inspect them.

"What do you think of this?"

"My god, these marks were made with..." she traced the lines with her fingertips. "...fingernails. This man was buried alive."

Nervous glances were exchanged between the four people in the room. Jonathan and Perry's eyes met; a mutual feeling of trepidation seemed to be circulating between them.

Evie looked away at the mummy, and then down to the lid again.

"And he left a message." she added, peering down at the harshly engraved writings. "Death... is only the beginning."

_**Arabic:**_

_Hebel - idiots_

_Anta ghabi - you are stupid_


	11. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER 11**

"Where do you think you're going, exactly?"

Jonathan had been sat by the fire with Rick when Perry strolled over to them and announced that she was leaving.

Her satchel was packed, and the way she stood with her head high suggested she was more than confident in her actions.

"Cairo," she said. "I'm going home. I think you and Evie should come with me. O'Connell, too, and anybody else who values their life."

Jonathan looked taken back.

A smile crossed his face, but then faltered when he realised this wasn't a joke.

"Are you serious, Perry?"

"As serious as a heart attack, Mr. Carnahan."

Her employer immediately regretted ever teaching her that expression.

Rick, a bystander to this scene, glanced awkwardly from Jonathan to Perry, wondering how this would end up.

Jonathan laughed, and calmly got to his feet, stiff knees clicking as he did so.

_Great,_ Perry thought. _He's sober._

She had been counting on him being drunk by now, but apparently he wasn't. Which was going to make this ten times more difficult.

The look on his face was incredibly unsettling: he was smiling and frowning at the same time, and it made him seem almost maniacal in the firelight.

He put his hands on his hips and cocked his head in question.

"And when did I give you permission to leave, exactly? You're still on my payroll, I believe."

Ah, the fault in her plan.

She took a deep breath.

"Mr. Carnahan, I don't want to die. And I don't want you to die. And if we stay in this—" she waved her arms around, "—place, we all certainly _will_ die."

Jonathan chuckled, and shook his head. He stepped towards her and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Perry, darling," he began. "Those tribesmen have just got you spooked. All that's here is sand and bones and other kinds of things we archaeologists dig up."

_We archaeologists_— secretly, Perry felt a rush of glee upon hearing this term, as she was _included_. An archaeologist had just called her an archaeologist, for perhaps the first time.

But that wasn't going to change her mind.

"Mr. Carnahan, we should have left by now. If whatever's in here doesn't kill us tonight, those men will come back and slaughter us." she said.

"Perry!" he exclaimed, giving her a little shake. "Don't you hear how ridiculous you sound?"

He removed his hands from her shoulders to take hold of her wrists.

"We will be out of here very soon. But I'm not going anywhere in the Sahara desert in the middle of the night, and neither are you. Understand?"

She sighed. He spoke like he was bribing a little child.

But she couldn't do something as bold and brash as walk away, and so reluctantly gave in when he guided her to his seat.

"Just relax, sweetheart. Nothing bad's going to happen..." he said, patting her on the back.

She plonked herself down beside him and rested her head in her hands. The plan would have to be carried out later.

"Hey, O'Connell," a Hungarian accent called from somewhere behind them. Rick looked over his shoulder; Perry didn't bother. "If I sit by your fire, you aren't going to toss me into the flames, are you?"

Rick turned back to the fire and said darkly,

"We'll see."

Beni took a seat between he and Jonathan, his squirmy little body never settling as he warmed up and eyed his surroundings.

Searching for a point of interest, his eyes landed on the glum-looking Pyrrah. He smiled, his dirty, yellow smile.

"It is such a shame that your face was horribly disfigured by those bandits," he said, mocking her with feigned sympathy. "Never will you truly regain the beauty of your youth—"

"Hey, shut up!" Jonathan spat.

Beni's face dropped.

Perry glared at him, and Jonathan frowned at him with agitation.

Slyly, Beni added,

"It would be most tragic if it were to affect your ability to find a husband."

"Alright, bugger off, mind your own business," Jonathan snapped at him. "Don't speak to my assistant anymore."

Beni smirked at the girl one last time as he turned to Rick, who was largely ignoring his surroundings.

Though her face remained a picture of anger, Perry's spirits dropped a little further. Those remarks were hurtful, even if it was somebody as lowly as Beni who had made them.

Jonathan huffed, and turned to her.

"Silly little Hungarian." he mumbled. "Damn fool doesn't know what he's talking about."

She moved her eyes to the ground.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Watching his normally energetic sidekick sit in such a sad state made Jonathan clock on to just how depressed Perry had grown.

"If you're saying that this cut," he wagged his finger over her injured cheek, "is making you look any less beautiful, then I'm afraid that swordsman must've hit you on the head as well."

A hint of a smile tugged at her lips, and she sat up straight.

"Thank you, Mr. Carnahan," she whispered. "I'm just feeling a little... bewildered. I shouldn't let things get to me so easily."

He hummed.

"Well, if there's anything you need to talk about, just—"

"I do have a question, actually."

She interrupted him mid-sentence.

Jonathan hesitated, wondering if he should get himself incredibly inebriated before participating in all this meaningful talking.

Nonetheless, he nodded.

"Go on, then."

Perry bit her lip, and then leaned in closer to him.

"How do I put this..." she muttered. "Have you ever met someone and felt like you've... met them before?"

Jonathan didn't seem to understand the question, but he was robbed of a chance to answer, anyway, as Henderson's voice sounded in their presence.

"Say, O'Connell, whaddaya think these babies will fetch back home?"

The Americans were making their way over to the fire.

Henderson was shaking an ornate jar at them, with a Horus hawk's head for a lid. Burns was holding a similar one, and so was Daniels.

They sat down opposite them.

Perry eyed the jars— and the men holding them— with suspicion.

"We heard you boys found yourselves a nice gooey mummy." Burns said.

"Congratulations," Daniels added, mockingly. "Ya know, if you dried that fella out, you might be able to sell it for firewood."

They snickered at their own jokes, but luckily Evie scurried over and ended their amusement with her arrival.

"Look what I found!"

O'Connell promptly kicked Beni out of Evie's seat, and she went on to giddily show Jonathan, Rick and Perry the little grey shells in her cupped palms.

"Scarab skeletons. Flesh eaters. I found them inside our friend's coffin. They can stay alive for years feasting on the flesh of a corpse. Unfortunately for our friend, he was still alive when they started eating him."

The Americans weren't so giggly then.

"So somebody threw these in with our guy, and then they slowly ate him alive?" Rick asked.

Evie grinned.

"_Very_ slowly."

Sometimes, Evelyn could be rather malicious. Some of the darkest things entertained the librarian, which made Perry imagine a psychologist would have a field day studying her psyche.

And it was only when Evie mentioned something particularly dark that Perry rejoined the present conversation.

"... our friend suffered the Hom-Dai," the librarian was telling Rick. "The worst of all Ancient Egyptian curses, one reserved only for the most evil of blasphemers."

Perry raised her eyebrows in surprise, and snapped her head around to look at Evie.

"I've studied this curse!" she exclaimed with excitement, catching everybody's attention.

Nobody said anything. She awkwardly composed herself and cleared her throat before continuing.

"It was used to condemn those who had committed sexual crimes with the Pharaoh's daughters and sons and such," she explained. "The victim would be condemned to a cursed life that would not end even in death, as although a person cursed with the Hom-Dai might be physically dead, they were still capable of being brought back to life."

The Americans stared at her blankly. Their lack of cockiness at the mention of such morbid acts was refreshing.

She smiled widely at Jonathan, who gave her an approving wink as Evie continued speaking once more.

"That's right," the Englishwoman went on. "Though, in all of my research, I've never heard of this curse actually being performed."

"Well, it was an incredibly powerful malediction created by the ancient High Priests. Not a simple procedure to carry out. They weren't going to use it _every_ day." Perry input, laughing lightly at the thought of the curse being used so sloppily.

Apparently, her sense of humour wasn't shared.

"That bad, huh?" Rick asked.

"Yes, well, they never used it because they feared it so." Evie took over the conversation again. "It's written that if a victim of the Hom-Dai should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt."

**XxXxXx**

_It's time._

Everybody was asleep. The entire campsite was dozing in the desert breeze, light breaths of slumber amidst the chirp of the crickets and the spitting of the dying fires.

And Perry had decided to leave.

Jonathan was snoozing contently, not too far from where Rick also slept, and so she made sure he was warm and gave him a quick kiss on the forehead.

"_Ma'a as-salaama_, Mr. Carnahan. _As-salaamu 'alaykum_."

Sadly, she gave a last glance around the campsite in the ruins and hugged her pashmina shawl tighter to her body.

This trip had been such an exciting concept for Perry. Her first actual archaeological venture, the chance to leave Cairo and actually go somewhere. Disappointingly, it would have to end this way.

"You leavin'?"

She spun around when Rick's voice startled her. Apparently, he wasn't asleep at all.

He was still lying down, eyes closed, completely still, but aware of everything; to anybody else, he would have seemed unconscious.

She nodded, although he couldn't see her.

"Yes. You'll see me when you get back to Cairo, I suppose."

"Watch out for yourself, then, kid. Stay out of trouble." he offered.

She smiled.

"You too, Mr. O'Connell. Stay safe." She paused. "And look after Mr. Carnahan and Evie for me. Make sure Jonathan doesn't do anything stupid?"

He chuckled sleepily, and waved her off with his hand.

Evelyn was scurrying about somewhere, probably doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing, so Perry decided against saying goodbye to her.

Evelyn was her friend, but she was running of the risk of being held in Hamunaptra another night if she caught her sneaking off.

So, she mounted her camel and trotted away at a steady pace, leaving behind the faintly illuminated ruins of the great City of the Dead, and her friends along with it.

Everything in the desert was so still; calm, unmoving, dark as it could get. Between spending all of her time with Jonathan and living in a bustling, over-populated city, she didn't have too many chances to savour silence.

She was quite enjoying it, actually. The desert was serene.

Until, of course, she heard a scream somewhere in the distance.

**Okay, so I personally don't think this chapter was one of my best. It was short, too, so sorry about that.**

**But the next is better!**

**And thanks everybody for the follows/ favourites/ reviews. :)**

_**Arabic:**_

_Ma'a as-salaama - Goodbye_

_As-salaamu 'alaykum - Peace be upon you_


	12. Chapter 12

**CHAPTER 12**

A man's scream pierced the air of the desert plains.

It was chilling, ripped from the throat of one man and followed by half a dozen more.

The screams were of pure fear, and emanated from Hamunaptra. Well, where else? This was the Sahara. There were no other people around for hundreds of miles.

Perry pulled her camel to a halt and glanced back at the ruins of the city.

The screams weren't faked, no part of a joke. Trouble had obviously seized the camp.

As she considered heading back, a new noise overtook the sounds of commotion. A clamourous array of clicking, screeching, buzzing noises, growing closer and closer. She couldn't fathom what would be causing such a ruckus, until she turned back to face the direction in which she had been heading.

_What the—_

The dark indigo sky was steadily growing darker, a massive blackness overtaking the natural blue. It was a swarm of something. Something that flew, something that such strange noises and travelled like a living storm cloud.

A swarm of... Locusts?

Locusts. Locusts that were heading straight towards Perry, and straight towards Hamunaptra.

_Oh no._

She pulled on the reigns of her camels to turn it around, willing it to run as fast as possible back the way they came. The locusts were approaching, and soon she felt them, landing on her neck, her back, her arms, tickling and biting and nipping and stinging.

It was unreal, like something from a story. Like a plague.

Like one of _the_ plagues?

Galloping as fast as possible and swatting bugs out of the way, she realised that these locusts had completely infiltrated the ruins of Hamunaptra.

_The camp!_ Jonathan, Evie, Rick— they were all there! Consumed by locusts?

A lump formed in her throat, and her breathing became strained with emotion. What had they done?

She veered her camel away from the mass horde of insects streaming inside the city, directing it to travel around the other side. Surely there was some other place to take shelter, some place to get inside and find what remained of her friends?

The locusts, she noticed, weren't following her around the back of Hamunaptra. They had been heading only for the camp.

_Why?_

She had no idea— at least, no idea she wanted to come to terms with— but she didn't have much free time to ponder it, either.

A shot was fired. Her camel panicked and skidded to a halt.

She tried to steady it, but it was no use. She was flung from the creature's back, onto the sand far below.

The air was knocked out of her lungs.

The world around spun out of control, the stars in the sky swirling as if they would be sucked into the drain hole of the universe.

_What just happened?_

She was able to take a guess when a couple of tall, dark, robe-wearing figures loomed into her vertigo-consumed view.

"Are you alright?"

There was that voice again. That deep smooth accent which she couldn't respond to because she couldn't breathe.

She coughed and gasped for air, and nodded.

A hand appeared, closer to her face, offering help. She hesitated, and then grasped it firmly. The man to whom it belonged pulled her to her feet, steadying her once she arose.

She looked around.

Her camel had been reigned in by some more robed men, just up ahead, who were all sheltered in the shadows of the city's walls. These were the men who had been trying to kill them last night.

"Are you going to kill me?" she breathed.

"No."

"You shot my camel?"

"We shot _near_ your camel. We had to stop you. The animal is not harmed."

She blinked to clear her blurry vision, but it was a while before she regained proper footing. Once her equilibrium balanced itself out and everything finally shifted into focus, she recognised those unmistakable eyes staring down at her.

Her opponent from yesterday— the man with the tattoos on his face— was just inches away from her. He was holding her shoulders, steadying her.

She blinked, and gasped for air again.

"What on Earth is happening?" she asked, terror resurfacing as she searched the sky for locusts.

"Your friends have unleashed the curse." he told her.

She took a step backwards, shrugging away from him.

"What? Do— do you mean the... Hom-Dai?"

He nodded, gravely.

"The curse of Imhotep."

Perry shut her eyes and shook her head. Desperately, she tried to shake herself from this dream, this nightmare. This couldn't be real. This wasn't happening.

But she could hear the clicking of the locusts, and feel the fierce ache in the back of her skull, and the chill of the desert on her face. There was no denying that this was indeed very, very real.

And if it was real for her, it was real for Jonathan and Evie and Rick.

"Are—Are they dead? We have to save my friends—"

The man placed a hand on her shoulder again, silencing her. The rest of the tribesmen were moving now, getting their guns and swords ready. What were they planning to do?

"We will save your friends if we can," he told her. "But I make no promise that they are alive."

Perry drew a deep breath.

"What is important right now is that you assist us in finding the remaining of them. A great evil now lurks within Hamunaptra."

The rest of the tribesmen darted off into the night, heading around the great walls and into the city.

Perry took this man's words into account. These men weren't her enemies, now: they were allies, pitted against something so horrific she couldn't begin to imagine its effect on them all.

She watched them move sleekly and silently, dark figures blending into the night.

"Who are you?" she asked. She was no longer breathless— her voice was firm.

"We are the Medjai." he said.

Perry looked him up and down. Yesterday, she and this stranger had been trying to slice each other's limbs off. Now, they were inches apart, neither hostile in the slightest. It was so... odd.

"And what is your name?"

He hesitated.

"I am Ardeth Bay."

_Ardeth Bay._ So, that was what the man was called.

Knowing somebody's name usually humanised them, gave one a sense of the other's identity. Yet, to Perry, Ardeth Bay was as mysterious now as he had been without any name at all.

"Well, Ardeth Bay..."

She reached into her satchel and pulled out Jonathan's pistol.

"... My name's Perry. And I am going to help you."

**XxXxXx**

The ruins were dark. They were always dark, of course, but this evening there was something dark in the _nature_ of the air that flowed within them.

Pyrrah had never dared venture around inside the nooks and crannies of Hamunaptra without Jonathan, especially after nightfall.

But tonight there was something about the desolate tunnels and narrow corridors that just felt... wrong. Something that overwhelmed the fact it was past dark.

She shivered as the Medjai split up to search the underground rooms.

"Are you alright?"

She glanced at Ardeth Bay, who towered over her at her side.

He must have been a foot bigger than her in height. And this only made the thought of her leveling him in combat seem more absurd.

"Yes," she lied. "Just a little claustrophobic."

They were deep within the core of Hamunaptra now. Scuttling noises racked the walls and ceilings all around, and screams could frequently be heard in the distance.

Truthfully, Perry was terrified. Scared out of her wits, prepared for the worst. But she didn't dare show it.

Until, of course, she saw with her own eyes the very worst thing within Hamunaptra. The thing that the Medjai had been keeping them from uncovering.

Ardeth, she, and the group of following Medjai rounded a corner, and then stopped abruptly. Perry was held back from all angles, her shirt pulled and her arms yanked at until she was frozen on the spot and wouldn't attempt to move forward.

The fierce Medjai were all stood stock-still, eyes fixed on the end of the corridor. She followed their gazes, and spotted two figures up ahead.

Blurry shadows at the end of the darkened tunnel, Perry couldn't make out who they were.

She frowned and strained her eyes.

One figure was tall, massive and hulking and very odd. It didn't belong to anybody she had seen at the camp, and when she spotted it, that familiar feeling of dread bubbled up in her gut.

The other figure was writhing, muffled moans and groans coming from his body. Was that... _Burns?_

Perry blinked. What was she was watching?

Suddenly, she sucked in a breath as she realised what they were looking at.

_Oh my goodness,_ she thought, _I must be dreaming, this can't be real—_

A scream travelled up from her chest, ready to burst out between her shaky breaths, but it was stopped when a hand clamped itself firmly over her mouth.

Ardeth raised a finger to his lips, motioning for her to be silent.

She nodded, but could barely contain herself. Her eyes felt like they were tricking her, her mind deceiving her, her legs wanted to buckle and her stomach wanted to turn itself inside out.

There, at the end of the tunnel, was the Mummy. Imhotep.

Living, moving, animated like a human.

The Hom-Dai was definitely, undeniably real.

Her breath hitched in her throat when the creature turned its head to the side, reacting to a noise. Luckily for she and the Medjai, it stalked off in the other direction.

It may have been distracted by another victim- God forbid it be Evie or Rick or Jonathan.

After a long, cautious wait, Ardeth whispered, "Go to him."

Perry dashed down the corridor, and knelt beside the limp body on the floor. Yes, it was Bernard Burns.

"Mr. Burns?" she whispered. "Mr. Burns!"

The footsteps of the Medjai followed her.

Burns was making some incomprehensible sounds, moans and gurgling noises. She lifted his head onto her lap and brushed the sweat-slicked hair off his forehead.

It was difficult to see in the dark, but as she peered closer, she realised why he wasn't speaking.

Hot liquid was streaming out of his mouth, which opened and closed like that of a dying fish. Occasionally, he choked on the thick liquid clogging up his esophagus.

Some of the liquid, which she quickly learned was blood, splattered out onto her clothes, droplets of it even spewing so far as to reach her neck.

The man's tongue had been ripped out.

And his eye sockets were no better. Bloody craters sat in his skull, raw and empty where his eyes had been torn straight out.

Perry hushed his senseless moans, stroking his forehead and attempting feebly to comfort the man. Her eyes welled up with tears.

"His eyes and his tongue have been torn out," she whispered to Ardeth, who was stood over them.

With shaky hands, she gently wiped the blood away from Burns' chin and cheeks, her fingers and palms and then wrists smearing the scarlet mess between her skin and his.

She sobbed, still trying to hush Burns. Her tears flowed freely now, falling and intermingling with the blood on her hands.

A scream echoed out up ahead.

"We must move quickly," Ardeth told her. "Your other friends must be found."

The Medjai scooped Burns out of Perry's arms and hoisted him up, dragging him into the darkness.

**XxXxXx**

Upon searching the front camp, they immediately found Dr. Chamberlain, clutching a large, black item to his chest and cowering in the wrecked campsite. The place was abandoned, spare the fez-wearing man.

Perry stepped up to him, followed closely by Ardeth and the other warriors.

"What happened?" she demanded, angrily.

She was trying to keep her emotions under control, but anger had long since taken over her sobbing. If Ardeth had seen her tears, however, he hadn't commented on them.

Dr. Chamberlain's breathing was shaky, he was covered in locusts, and all he could do was shake his head.

"Sh— She r-read f-from the b-book—" he stammered.

"What?" Perry snapped, unable to make out what he was trying to say. He tried again, but she silenced him.

She was about to turn to the Medjai, when she caught sight of what exactly the item in his arms was.

"What's that?" she asked.

He glanced down at the book, guiltily, and then hugged it tighter.

"A book? That's certainly not what I think it is... Is it?" she whispered, pointing to the object.

Over her shoulder, Ardeth spoke.

"That is the Book of the Dead. To read from it would awaken the creature."

Perry shook her head at Chamberlain with disgust.

"How could you all be so foolish?" she spat.

Dr. Chamberlain avoided her eyes.

She stepped closer to him, invading his personal space, and held her blood-covered hands up.

"See this?" she whispered, shoving her upturned, red-stained palms in his face. "This is the blood of your friend, Mr. Burns."

Dr. Chamberlain stared at her hands in wide-eyed horror. For all he knew, Burns was dead.

Perry spun around.

"He is fine," she told the Medjai, who surrounded the doctor, guns aimed. "We need to get to the others. Which way did they go?"

Dr. Chamberlain nodded towards Hamunaptra's main entrance.

Perry frowned, calculating the possible whereabouts of her companions in her head.

"If they took this entrance and followed the route we found Burns in..." she mused. "They would have ended up in the fourth shaft."

Ardeth nodded.

"If that is so, they would either be in the antechamber or the annex by now."

"Trap doors and hidden tunnels excluded," she added, to herself more than he.

The warrior turned to his men and gave his instructions, using Perry's consultation to draw upon a conclusion.

"We shall head to the opening behind the annex and await their arrival."

The Medjai nodded, and ushered Dr. Chamberlain along with their guns.

Ardeth lead the way, navigating them through the intricate web of halls.

Nobody spoke as they walked, which only gave Perry more time to dwell on the terrible mistakes of her friends.

_I was right,_ she thought. _I warned them. They didn't listen. And look what it has resulted in._

The lack of disturbance to her thoughts allowed her to grow angrier and angrier, and apparently the look on her face showed it.

Ardeth, she eventually noticed, was repeatedly throwing puzzled glances in her direction. He seemed cross, but then he hadn't looked particularly happy at any point since their meeting.

"Can I help you with something, Mr. Bay?" she asked. Accidentally, her tone came across more heated than she expected.

He looked away and ignored her.

They were at their destination relatively quickly, and there the Medjai formed a barrier, blocking this entrance from the outside world with pointed guns; Dr. Chamberlain was shoved to his knees, and there they awaited the arrival of their guests.

Perry stood beside Ardeth, arms crossed, mentally preparing her lecture with which to scold her idiotic friends. Jonathan, specifically.

Daniels was the first to run out of the ruins, arms flailing, obviously panicked. Henderson was the last.

And between them, Rick, Evie and Jonathan darted out.

_Surprise, surprise, they're holding hands,_ Perry thought, as Rick and Evie bolted out towards them.

Jonathan just looked like a madman.

As their faces depicted, they were all completely traumatised by whatever they had just encountered.

They skidded to a screeching halt when they realised that they had run straight into the barricade of Medjai, whose guns clicked in unison.

Hands above their heads, the five of them froze.

The baffled expressions on their faces were priceless when they realised Perry was standing with the tribesmen who had attacked them the night before.

"Perry?" Jonathan shrieked.

Pyrrah's stony expression didn't soften. She gave no response.

Ardeth, however, lowered his scarf and stepped forward.

"I told you to leave or die." he said. "You refused. Now you may have killed us all. For you have unleashed a creature that we have feared for more than three thousand years."

"Relax. I got him." Rick said.

Perry laughed.

"Are you that shallow, Mr. O'Connell?"

The man was oblivious to the fact that he was wrong, in denial of the idea that the gunpowder and shell of a bullet cartridge couldn't kill what he had seen.

"No mortal weapon can kill this creature. He is not of this world." Ardeth said.

Alongside the Medjai chief, Perry stepped out of the way so as to allow two other men to carry the limp body of Burns into view. The Carnahans lowered their hands in stunned silence, turning to watch the man be dragged to his friends.

The Medjai dropped Burns into Henderson and Daniels' arms. Daniels looked repulsed.

"You bastards." he hissed, southern drawl laden with hate.

"What did you do to him?!" spat Henderson.

Perry stepped forward, angrily.

"What did they do to him?" she repeated. "They didn't do this to him! How dare you accuse them of this?"

Daniels pulled an outraged face at her and tried to justify the conclusion he'd jumped to.

"They attacked us and now—"

"I was with them when they saved him!" she screeched, furiously gesturing to the blood drying on her sleeves and shirt and lap.

"Saved him before the creature could finish his work!" Ardeth added.

Burns' head, devoid of eyeballs and tongue, lolled around in Henderson's lap.

"Leave, all of you, quickly. Before he finishes you all." Ardeth instructed. He then called out to his men. "Yalla! Imshi."

The Medjai disbanded, lowering their guns and heading towards the entrance of the inner ruins.

Ardeth turned slightly and gave her a nod.

"Your assistance was appreciated." he said.

She gave him a nod in return, and then watched sullenly as he walked away. He still seemed so familiar.

"We must now go on the hunt, and try and find a way to kill him." Ardeth said to Rick as they passed.

"I already told you, I got him." Rick stated, rather defensively.

_What a thickheaded man,_ Perry thought. _Does he really believe that?_

Ardeth stopped in his tracks. He paused, and then turned to O'Connell.

"Know this." he said. "This creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat. He will never sleep. And he will never stop."

Once the Medjai left, Jonathan stepped over to Perry's side.

"Perry, wh—"

She held a hand in his face.

"Save it, Mr. Carnahan."

It didn't take long after the Medjai disappeared inside the ruins for the Americans, Dr. Chamberlain, O'Connell, the Carnahans and Perry to mount their horses and camels and head back to Cairo.

Perry didn't speak to anyone on the trip home. Rather, she was preoccupied with thoughts of the creature, the Medjai who were hell-bent on stopping it, the mysterious Ardeth Bay, and what was to await them all in the future.


	13. Chapter 13

**CHAPTER 13**

**Fort Brydon, Cairo.**

There was a great storm brewing over Cairo.

Heavy grey nimbus clouds shielded the land from the Sun's rays, and thunder rumbled as if Baal the storm god was feeling particularly wrathful.

But within Jonathan Carnahan's home in Fort Brydon, another sort of storm was tearing the place apart.

"I don't understand how you could just flat-out abandon me like that, Perry!"

"What I don't _understand_, Jonathan, is how you could just accidentally awaken a three thousand year old mummy!"

The front door slammed shut.

The soles of Jonathan's spectator shoes slapped noisily onto the hardwood floors as he thundered about the front room of his house.

A round of dull thuds overpowered this noise momentarily as Pyrrah dumped his bags carelessly by the door, and then her own footsteps pattered across the ground.

"Well, I didn't wake the damn thing up!" he shouted back at her.

He stood and ran his thin fingers through his hair, muttering curse words under his breath and seething from the stress of it all.

Jonathan's home was less of a home and more of a check-point, to which he retreated every now and again to seek sanctuary.

His bed was second only to whatever benches he passed out on during the week, and so between his car, the bar and the lodgings of the numerous women he slept with, it wasn't used half as much as it could have been.

Deciding the weather outside was not very eye-pleasing, Perry stormed over to the cretonne curtains and yanked them shut.

"I told you to leave, though." She had lowered her voice, but spoke with noticeable anger.

Jonathan switched a lamp on to make up for the darkness cast by the drapes; on the table below the light sat a bottle of scotch, already opened, from which he proceeded to pour himself a tumbler.

Perry watched him seat himself in his armchair and sink into the leather. It creaked. He rubbed his eyes sighed, before practically draining his drink.

As far as she knew, most of the furniture in Jonathan's house had been picked out by Evie some time ago. The basic stuff, anyway.

But bland, tasteful, colour-coordinated items were never really Jonathan's style, and so a jumble of mismatched items he had collected over the years now sat between squashed silk pillows and creased pongee throws.

African masks hung from the walls, and a massive stone statue of a foo dog from his travels in the orient guarded one corner. The marble head of a Greek statue served as a paperweight on his desk, and tribal vases lined the shelves of books that adorned every wall.

Brass carvings of Hindu gods, a jug from Pompeii, the helmet of a Mongol warrior and a brightly coloured rocking chair from South America were among the cluttered mess in which he resided.

Jonathan had acquired some of these artefacts himself, objects that had caught his eye when his career was flourishing and had never end up being sold. Others, like a stone tablet with Horus, Osiris and Isis sculpted into it, had once belonged to his father.

It was madness and adventure spread over poshness and coated with the smell of whiskey.

Perry imagined this to be what Evie's house would look like, if Evie were insane.

"Well, I told you to stay," Jonathan said, tiredly. "But, apparently, not everybody does what they're told."

The argument that had spanned the entire duration of their arrival in Fort Brydon had just lost its fire.

Gingerly, Perry moved over to Jonathan's desk and took a seat at his chair. She stifled a yawn and joined him in staring at the floor.

The old railway station clock that hung on the wall— one of Perry's favourite items of Jonathan's, since she had never seen an English train station but rather fancied it— ticked steadily in their silence.

"I thought you'd been eaten by locusts."

It was five minutes or so before she made that remark. Jonathan looked over at her and scoffed.

"Little buggers couldn't tear through this chap's skin, I'll tell you now," he said, with all sincerity. "Tough as nails, I am."

Perry giggled.

The angry tension in the air evaporated.

"So," she sighed. "Do you have any idea what we should do now?"

Jonathan looked thoughtful.

"Leave."

His assistant raised an eyebrow, watching as he drummed his fingers along his lips.

"Leave?"

"Yes," Jonathan mused. "Get as far away from that bloody creature as possible, what do you say?"

Perry looked down at her clothes, which were still largely stained with Burns' blood. It was no surprise that people had been staring as they made their way through Fort Brydon.

She wanted to visit Burns, and see how he was getting along. Even Daniels and Henderson would be shaken, and should be checked up on.

"Um, no." she told Jonathan. "We can't leave now. We've created a mess, and we can't just run away from it."

Jonathan moaned, and sunk further into the armchair.

"Why? Can't those men with swords sort it out?"

Perry rolled her eyes and stood up.

"No!" she walked over to his side and snatched his crystal tumbler off of him. "You have to at least make an effort to fix this, Mr. Carnahan."

Like a petulant child, Jonathan groaned and buried his head in the arm of the chair.

"Fine!" he droned, his voice muffled. "How do you propose I 'fix things', then?"

She shrugged and stepped around the back of the armchair, leaning on the mahogany backing with her elbows.

"I don't know. What do you know about curses?"

Jonathan sat up, and stared blankly at wall opposite him. There was a framed picture, of he and a man with a top hat and moustache. Following his eyeline, it took Perry a while to realise that it was a photograph of he and Howard Carter.

"Nothing," he told the portrait, voice blue. "I know nothing about curs—"

He stopped.

Perry looked down at him with concern. To her surprise, he spun to face her and bolted up onto his knees. The suddenness of his enthusiastic face in front of hers gave her a shock.

"I know nothing about curses," he said, beaming at her. "But it just so happens, darling, that I know somebody who does."

Perry paused. She couldn't fathom what he might be talking about.

"Who?"

Jonathan hopped off the chair and stood in the centre of the room, clicking his fingers boisterously and striding around with a sudden nervous anticipation. He looked like a street performer, trying to capture his audience with the portrayal of an anxious schoolboy.

"Perry, do you know why I was at the Sultan's Casbah the night I stole from O'Connell?"

Well, this was something she _hadn't_ known. Jonathan rarely needed a motivation to end up in a bar, but now she was intrigued.

"...Because you were kicked out of every other pub in Cairo?"

Jonathan ignored her snarky statement.

"No. Because I wanted to get very, very drunk. Because of a lady."

Within the minute, they were out of Jonathan's flat and thundering downstairs to his car.

"What lady?" Perry demanded as they descended another flight of steps.

Jonathan had 'relations' with countless Helens and Ruths, Marjories and Thelmas, all beautiful, all rich, and all sharing his love of alcohol.

There was the occasional high-class prostitute— Perry was smart enough to tell when a girl was working— or exotic dancer thrown into the mix, but at the end of the day, he wasn't committed to a single one of them.

Perry had grown to believe it was simply the culture of Western men to behave in such ways.

So when Jonathan said that he had gotten drunk over a woman, she was more than curious.

"Oh, a monster of lady," he told her with bitter glee. "A real witch, a Jezebel if ever I've—"

"Jonathan_, who?!_"

She grabbed the shoulder of his coat and stopped him as they reached the outdoors. The sky rumbled. Jonathan glanced up at the storm and sighed.

"Her name is Marina," he admitted. "Marina Quatermain."

**XxXxXx**

"I've known her since I was a boy. Our fathers were good friends."

The current lodgings of Ms. Marina Quatermain were situated on the north side of Fort Brydon, a penthouse suite within the British Embassy's establishment.

Once they had been directed to the woman's whereabouts, Jonathan explained to Perry a little bit about his old friend. Quite frankly, Perry thought she sounded like a figment of her boss' imagination: he had obviously built her up in his memory as being some sort of beautiful goddess of torture.

"And what exactly is the nature of your... Relationship?" she asked him, suspicious of his state of mind.

Jonathan pulled a pained face.

"Let's just say she was the first girl I... became close with. When I was a teenager."

_Oh,_ Perry thought, putting the pieces together. _That's why this is all so tragic to him._

They reached the front door of Marina Quatermain's home. This building, to the top floor of which they had just hurried, was like a hotel. Classical music was playing softly somewhere, and everything reeked of lavender potpourri.

Jonathan knocked, and then loosened his necktie worriedly.

"Did you leave her?" Perry whispered, carefully.

He stared at the door, for so long that she thought he wasn't going to answer at all.

"Quite the opposite," he finally replied. "She left me, and tore my bloody heart out as she went."

Perry felt a twinge of sadness for the man. They waited in silence for this dreaded first love of his to answer the door, and when the lock clicked, she found herself anxious to get a look at this heartbreaking harlot.

The door opened.

Surrounded by floating ribbons of cigarette smoke was a woman— a woman whose aura didn't read 'harlot' or 'jezebel' at all, but rather beheld the female embodiment of an angel.

A shock of blonde marcel curls met a silver silk gown, and between them her porcelain white skin was without flaw.

Bright, aquamarine eyes watched the world lazily from behind smoky lashes, and her scarlet smile was crooked as it curved up at the sight of Jonathan.

"Well, if it isn't Jonathan Carnahan." Her voice was melodic, her accent proper and English. "Heard I was in town, did you?"

If Jonathan had been any weaker-willed, he might have dropped to his knees then and there and begged her to take him back. Instead, he smiled, like he was somehow relieved to hear her speak.

"Yes, Marina, I did."

Marina Quatermain turned around and drifted back into her home, leaving them in the open doorway. Jonathan ushered Perry through, and shut the door behind them.

The suite was probably the exact opposite of Perry's house. Spacious, expertly decorated, clean, fully furnished and with a calming atmosphere, it didn't take her long to deduce that Marina was either a millionaire or closely related to a millionaire.

Their hostess glided— because she was inhumanly graceful in even the way she moved from place to place— over to a cabinet to pour herself an alcoholic drink of some sort.

Perry nudged Jonathan, urging the man to stop daydreaming and get on with their intended business. He cleared his throat.

"Um, actually, Marina, if—"

"Is that your wife?"

There was a pause. Marina hadn't turned to face them yet. It took Perry a moment to realise that she was asking about her.

"Oh, no, this is my assistant, Perry," Jonathan laughed. "Say hello, Perry."

_There's no need to talk to me like I'm a dog,_ she thought.

"Salutations, Ms. Quatermain."

Marina turned and beamed at Perry. The champagne glass she held was practically the size of a fish bowl.

"Pleasure to meet you, dear," she said. "Does Jonathan treat you well?"

Perry nodded.

"Yes."

Marina's smiling eyes shifted from she to Jonathan.

"Of course he does. He's a sweetheart, isn't he?"

Jonathan laughed in embarrassment, and waved his hand in dismissal of her flattery.

"Oh, I wouldn't—"

"Drink, Jonathan?"

Marina tapped her long, manicured fingernails on her glass. Perry's own nails were bitten down, and currently encrusted with a mixture of blood and sand.

"No, thank you." Jonathan lied. "Actually, I—"

"Say, Jonny, what have you been up to lately? Still crying yourself to sleep every night?"

_Ouch._

Marina leaned against the edge of her desk, an eyebrow perked as she sipped at her champagne. There was a mischievous glint in her eye, a little devilish sparkle.

Jonathan smiled sourly.

"Very funny. You're funny."

Perry felt the need to aid him. The battle between Marina Quatermain and the man's pride was definitely tipping in favour of the former.

"Jonathan's been doing very well for himself, Ms. Quatermain," she interjected. "Actually, we were just on an expedition to Hamunaptra."

Marina froze.

Her face dropped along with her champagne glass.

"Hamunaptra?" she asked. "_The _Hamunaptra?"

"None other." Jonathan told her, smugly.

She stroked the golden waves of her hair, as if trying to console herself. She looked worried.

"Well, I must say I'm impressed." she admitted. "Come to think of it, a friend of mine mentioned such a trip just last week. I didn't believe him, of course."

Jonathan tilted his head with curiosity. Although, Perry could see it was less about curiosity, and more about possessiveness.

"A _friend_ of yours?"

Marina's eyes shifted around the room. She cleared her throat.

"Yes, Hungarian fellow. His name's Beni."

Perry's eyes went wide. Beni hadn't ridden home with them to Cairo. She had assumed he was dead; maybe the creature was wearing his skin as they spoke.

"Mr. Gabor accompanied us, actually." she told the English woman.

Marina and Jonathan's eyes were locked. She didn't look away from him to respond.

"No kidding?"

Jonathan's face was stone cold.

"Beni's a friend of yours?" he asked.

There was a silence that could have made the walls freeze over. Marina eventually lost the staring competition, her eyes dropping guiltily to her drink.

"A friend."

Perry stood awkwardly by as some sort of telepathic battle ensued between Jonathan and his former girlfriend. She waited until the tension became unbearably awkward, and then broke the suspense.

"Well, Ms. Quatermain, Jonathan here told me you know a thing or two about curses?"

Marina turned her head to Perry like she was addressing an annoying child. But when she realised how long there had been an absence of noise, appreciation of the question arose.

"Yes. I've lived all over Africa, and believe me when I say black magic exists."

"Uh, yes, well," Jonathan started, back to his normal mannerisms for the time being. "What can you tell us about bringing things back to life?"

Marina sipped her drink.

"Resurrection?"

The archaeologist and his assistant glanced at each other.

"...Kind of."

Perry wrung her hands as she thought of a better way to put the question.

"Marina, what do you know about the Hom-Dai curse?"

A laugh startled them when she chuckled loudly. Rising to her feet, she set her champagne on the table and wagged a finger at Perry.

"Oh, that's a bad one. The Ancient Egyptians didn't create that curse for their sweethearts."

"We know." Jonathan muttered.

Marina caught his remark.

She put her hands on her hips, and frowned at the two visitors to her house.

"Does this have something to do with your trip to Hamunaptra?"

**a/n: Okay, so I hope everybody enjoyed this chapter!**

**Special thankyous to everybody who has posted a review so far- you are all wonderful and supportive. And same goes to everybody who has followed/ favourited it. :) More coming as soon as possible!**

**-Anne**


	14. Chapter 14

**CHAPTER 14**

"That's quite a story."

The trio of Perry, Jonathan and Marina had ended up dotted around Quatermain's lounge, the former pair recounting their tale of terror as honestly as possible.

Marina took a drag of her cigarette. Her hand was shaking ever so slightly.

"You believe us, though?" Perry asked her.

Jonathan peered at her from across the coffee table.

As they awaited her answer, she blew out a mouthful of smoke.

"Do I have a choice?" she finally asked, laughing lightly.

Jonathan reached out and placed his hand on hers. Surprised by the movement, she looked up at him innocently.

"You have to help us, Marina," he said. "Otherwise this creature might bump us all off."

Perry couldn't tell whether he was manipulating her, or genuinely pleading. When he was around Marina, Jonathan became somewhat unpredictable.

"Fine," the blonde sighed. "I'll do my best. But only because you're so special to me, Jonny."

With her cigarette hand, she grasped his chin and shook his head about, squishing his cheeks like she was toying with a baby.

"Now, have you had any protective charms put on you?" she asked, stubbing out her cigarette in an ashtray.

Jonathan thought about it for a second, and then said,

"No, that sounds ridiculous."

Marina stood and swept across the room to her desk, which seemed almost superfluous because there was little to no paperwork on top of it at all.

"Hmm. Well, I'll need a few things..." she hummed.

"Anything," Jonathan said, nodding enthusiastically and standing to see what she was doing.

She pulled open a drawer and fished out a _Rouge et Noir_ Montblanc pen and a sheet of paper.

"A Bible, for starters," she said, scribbling down notes as she listed each item. "A book on the Nineteenth Dynasty. And any books you can find on the Khaldun Amulet or the Karawan Amulets."

With a final dot to punctuate her words, she harshly tore the paper and handed it over to Jonathan. The books she had mentioned were listed in Marina's cursive handwriting, that would have been pretty if it wasn't so rushed.

Jonathan gave the paper a quick once-over, before handing it to Perry over his shoulder.

"Right, Perry can get these things, can't you Perry?"

"I suppose so." she mumbled.

_Not that the errand girl can refuse,_ she thought.

Marina smiled.

Her eyes, the colour of the sea, met Jonathan's, the colour of the sky, and flashed.

"Great," she said. "Jon, you stay here with me and tell me in detail the order in which the Hamunaptra events happened."

Before Perry could protest that they had already explained everything they knew, Jonathan had agreed with her.

"Okay, fantastic idea!" he asserted, clapping his hands together.

Perry narrowed her eyes in suspicion. His response was too ardent. These two were up to something.

Marina folded her arms and smiled, awaiting Perry's exit as Jonathan waved her away.

Twisting her lips at the list in her hands, she opened the front door. Jonathan called to her before she left.

"And, Perry— get changed on your way to the library? You look like you just butchered someone."

**XxXxXx**

The walk from Fort Brydon to Embabeh wasn't a quick or easy one, but having completed it night after night for four years, Perry knew which neighbourhoods to avoid in particular.

Reaching her home, she washed and scrubbed the blood and dust of Hamunaptra off of her body, and changed her clothes as Jonathan had suggested.

Tapered harem trousers, a black blouse and a black hijab were her choices: the last colourful clothes she had worn had ended up smattered with blood, so the off-putting reminder led her to keeping it simple.

The cut on her face, deep and open, wasn't healing as quickly as she hoped— perhaps Jonathan was right when he said she'd need stitching up— so she adjusted her al-Amira to try and conceal it whilst she scurried out of Embabeh once more.

She had been expected by Jonathan and Marina to head to the library, but the majority of books on her list were centred around Egyptology. And the best place to narrow her search down to that topic could be found in the Museum of Antiquities: within the stacks.

So that was where she headed, beneath the rumbling thunderclouds that had not yet burst into rain.

"Hello?" she called. The museum was empty.

_Odd,_ she thought. _It should be open at this hour._

Her footsteps on the marble tile floor serving as the only noises, she hurried into the depths of the museum.

It was dark, and difficult therefore to find a light switch to solve that problem. Every little noise echoed; the museum felt desolate, and Perry had to keep reminding herself that she wasn't breaking any laws by sneaking around.

"Evie obviously didn't get a chance to tidy up, then..." she mumbled to herself upon reaching the stacks.

There were books strewn everywhere, and the massive toppled-over shelves lay like dead animals in this disaster zone. The curator's request for Evelyn to 'straighten up this mess' clearly hadn't been carried out before their departure for Hamunaptra.

She found the shelf that held books on Ancient Egypt's dynasties, and knelt on the floor beside it, running her fingers along the jumble of covers and spines and open pages.

_Nineteenth Dynasty... Nineteenth Dynasty... Nineteenth Dynas—_

"They shouldn't have even made it off that barge."

"We lost several men in that attempt. By the time word reached me that they had survived, they had reached Hamunaptra."

Perry froze.

Footsteps were following voices in the other room, quickly growing closer to the wreckage of the stacks.

A jolt of panic sent her heart pounding, so loudly she was worried they would hear it. She silently rose to her feet, but didn't dare move.

Luckily, the footsteps stopped outside of the room. She remained still, controlling her breathing, and listened carefully.

"And what after that? Did you just let them be? See what would happen?"

"We warned them. They refused to leave."

There were two voices— men's voices— and much to her surprise, she recognised _both_ of them.

One voice, irritated and prone to barking, belonged to the museum curator, Dr. Terence Bey.

The second voice, calmer and deeper, belonged to none other than Ardeth Bay, the Medjai.

It was undoubtable. Perry wondered how they knew each other— let alone well enough so as to have an entire conversation— but was stumped for an answer.

She gingerly took a step forward, aiming to edge her way closer to the door to eavesdrop. But she was surrounded by a fort of books and library shelves, practically an obstacle course.

Terence Bey asked a question.

"And what of the creature?"

Before an answer could be given by Ardeth, Perry's foot came into contact with a copy of _Ancient Egyptian Legends_ by M.A. Murray, sending the pile of books below it tipping onto the floor with a series of thuds and slaps.

She froze on the spot again as the footsteps resumed. The museum curator and the Medjai appeared in the doorway.

Perry offered them an awkward smile.

"...Hello."

Terence went wide-eyed, furious and befuddled at the same time.

"What are you doing here?!" he shouted.

Perry's face dropped. She wasn't doing anything wrong. _He_ was the one having a secret meeting with a Medjai. Not exactly the typical behaviour of a museum curator.

She put her hands on her hips, prepared to give Dr. Bey a taste of his own medicine.

"What are _you_ doing here?" she demanded. She pointed at Ardeth. "And how do you know _him_?"

Terence looked taken back by her attitude. He looked to Ardeth for support, but none was shown, and then stammered things at Perry in flabbergasted outrage.

"Wh— how— Why are you sneaking around the museum?" he snapped. "I think _you_ should be the one explaining yourself, young lady!"

Perry glared at him.

Terence Bey had just been talking to Ardeth about the creature, and Hamunaptra, about the attack on their barge. Terence, who had tried to convince them Hamunaptra was all 'fairy tales and hokum'. Terence, who killed Jonathan's map.

Unless, it wasn't a coincidence. Perhaps the curator had tried to steer them away from Hamunaptra for a reason, a reason regarding a well-guarded secret...

"Dr. Bey, are you a Medjai?"

Terence's anger disappeared. He shut his mouth abruptly.

Perry looked to Ardeth in question.

"What happened to the creature? Did you destroy it? Where is it?"

Terence sighed in exasperation and shut his eyes.

"I think we need to have a little discussion."

**XxXxXx**

Proving her suspicions correct, Dr. Bey admitted that he was, in fact, a Medjai.

They had moved to Terence's office; he sat at his desk, and Perry listened like a schoolchild to the headteacher whilst he made his confession.

Light from the single candle on his desk flickered across the mens' faces and shadowed their features.

They had not yet explained to her who exactly the Medjai were, but she still presumed that they were the warriors who had guarded Hamunaptra for centuries.

Ardeth stood by, silently, but then went on to answer her previous questions.

"The creature escaped Hamunaptra before we could catch him," he told her. "We believe he is heading here."

She blinked.

"Here? To Cairo?"

Ardeth and Terence nodded gravely in unison.

"Yes. To kill those at the mercy of the Hom-Dai and use their bodies to regenerate himself to full health." Ardeth said.

Perry's blinked at him.

"Delightful."

Outside, the sky boomed. The weather was the worst she had seen it all year. She just wished it would rain already, or snow or hail or do whatever it was going to do.

Knitting her brows with displeasure, she looked over at Terence.

"Are we all affected by the curse, then?"

"No," he answered. "Only those who opened the chest containing the Book of the Dead and the canopic jars."

She looked back to Ardeth.

"The Americans, then."

"I'm afraid so," he said. "But the creature will surely destroy anyone in his way. And if he is not stopped, millions will perish under his rule."

_That's not putting it dramatically at all, is it?_

Perry stood up, suddenly and with determination.

"Well, that's not going to happen. Because we're going to stop him. Aren't we?"

Terence sighed, and nodded dismally, as if she had worn him out with her questions.

"Find your friends," he instructed. "Warn them of their demise."

Perry gave Dr. Bey a curt nod and walked briskly to the door.

Grasping the handle, she turned back to look at them.

Both men looked displeased. They were very brusque in their demeanour, the Medjai. It must have come with the job.

However, all she saw in Ardeth was a familiar face, one too imprinted in her mind to bother her with a cold attitude or constant frown.

"Right," she said before stepping out of the office. "I'll see you later... I hope."

**a/n: I've nearly finished Chapter 15 (and to be honest I like it better than this one). It'll be up as soon as possible, me promises.**

**Aaanyway, thanks again for all of the lovely reviews/ follows/ favourites! :D You guys are great.**

**-Anne**


	15. Chapter 15

**CHAPTER 15**

Anxiety pains wracked Perry's chest as she knocked on Marina Quatermain's door.

There was something bubbling up in Egypt's air, something that people on the street were noticing as she hurried from the museum to Fort Brydon.

A horrible atmosphere loomed like the forthcoming precipitation above.

"Who is it?" Marina's voice called softly through the door.

Perry shook worried thoughts from her head and focused on the present.

_Goodness_, she had been helping the Medjai for five minutes and she was already feeling stressed.

She cleared her throat.

"It's Perry," she called back, and added on an afterthought, "Jonathan's assistant."

There was a pause, and then the sound of chain locks being slid out of place. The door swung open.

Marina was there, but to say that she looked different from their first meeting would be an understatement.

Her blonde hair was in disarray, her previously perfect curls now tousled free from their glossy hold. Her mouth was red and raw, bright lipstick smudged and faded. Her smoky eyes were dreamy and tired, and the porcelain skin of her neck and chest was dotted with fresh love bites.

Where her silver dress had clung to her curves beforehand, a creased white bed sheet was now wrapped around her in a crumpled cocoon.

By the looks of things, she and Jonathan had been very busy— and not talking about curses.

"Umm..." Perry's train of thought was somewhat derailed when she saw the state of the almost-naked woman in front of her. "Is, uh, Jonathan here?"

Marina was, however, holding a cigarette. So _that_ was similar to their first encounter.

She took a drag.

"He left."

"What?!"

With the creature headed to Cairo to claim its victims, the thought of Jonathan wandering around the city certainly wasn't a comforting one.

"Don't worry, don't worry," Marina assured her, waving her smoke around. "He's just at the bar around the corner."

Perry collected herself.

"Oh."

When the silence grew between the ladies, Perry searched for that other reason she was supposed to be there.

"I brought you the books you asked for," she remembered, reaching into her satchel and pulling out the references from the list.

Marina held her cigarette between her lips and took the pile of books gratefully.

"Right, thanks. Listen, I figured out what's happening," she said, struggling to balance the books and keep her bedsheet-dress from falling down at the same time.

"What do you mean?"

Marina nodded her head at the roof. Her cigarette bounced up and down as she spoke.

"The plagues. The first was locusts, yes? The next, I assume, will be hail."

A great rumble of thunder shook the building to its core. Perry swallowed, nervously.

"Hail?"

"Hail," Marina repeated, to the ceiling. "Or frogs."

The English lady momentarily disappeared inside of her house to set her books down. With her figure out of the doorway, Perry could see that the suite beyond was a complete mess.

End-tables knocked over, pillows discarded on the floor, her silk dress thrown over the grandfather clock; she and Jonathan had torn through the place like a cyclone.

"I'll help in any way I can," Marina said, reappearing now. "Just watch for the plagues. They mean _he_ is near. And make sure the book doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

"Shukran, Ms. Quatermain," Perry told her, backing up in preparation for her hurry to the stairwell. "You are good to assist us."

In no time at all Perry had reached the bottom floor, but instead of immediately dashing out the front doors of the building, she stopped.

In the centre of the empty lobby was a fountain, an ornate structure in which water flowed from the mouths of stone angels.

She had ran past it three times today and thought nothing much about it at all.

But now, she gazed at it in wonder, because the most peculiar thing was occurring.

The water of the fountain had turned red. Dark red, the colour of... blood.

_Watch for the plagues. They mean he is near._

She stepped over to the fountain and dipped her finger in it. Droplets of scarlet liquid, metallic-smelling and thick, dripped from her hand as she raised it to eye-level.

"He raised his staff at the presence of the Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile," Perry whispered to herself. "And the rivers and waters of Egypt ran red and were as blood."

She had to find Jonathan.

**XxXxXx**

Following Marina's direction wasn't easy.

Perhaps if Perry had been taller, and could therefore see over the heads of the people that swarmed the streets, she would have been able to locate said 'bar around the corner'.

There was a final crack of thunder, and the patter of hailstones reached her ears. Tiny spheres of ice began to descend from the storm clouds, bouncing like fleas off the dusty roads when they hit the ground.

The crowd began to dissipate, and in the space that grew, Perry caught sight of one member of the American trio.

"Mr. Daniels!" she called.

David Daniels had been squinting at the sky above, but looked down when he heard her voice. She hurried over to his side.

"What's up with this darned weather?" he asked her. "It always like this in Egypt?"

The sky growled.

"No," she replied, a little breathlessly.

The last time Perry had spoken to Daniels, she had been berating him for accusing the Medjai of mutilating Burns. Hopefully, they could move past their former disagreement in order to save the lives of his friends.

"Where's Mr. Carnahan?" she asked.

Daniels looked reluctant to speak with her, but he eventually answered.

"He was in that there bar with Henderson and O'Connell. Why?"

Perry glanced at the building he was talking about, and then back to him. Very seriously, she grasped his shoulder.

"Mr. Daniels, you and your friends are in grave danger," she told him.

He looked skeptical.

"Look, our boat outta here doesn't leave 'til tomorrow mornin'. Until then, I can't do much about anythin'." he explained, rather exasperatedly.

"You don't undertand," she said, lowering her voice. "The creature is coming after you, and its intentions are not kindly."

Daniels was unsettled by her sincerity, but still seemed unwilling to accept her warning.

"Listen, bearcat," he started. "I'm sure you know your onions and all, but—"

"The curse, Mr. Daniels!" she cut in. "The curse—"

There was a high-pitched whining noise, like a bomb being dropped on Egypt, that interrupted their speech.

They both looked in the direction of the sound to see a massive ball of fire hurtling towards the earth. All around, people began screaming.

"Is that a comet?" Daniels asked.

Perry shook her head at him before their attentions were drawn to the noise of a second fiery rock speeding towards the ground, and then a third and fourth. In seconds, the bleak sky was alight with smoking masses of flames, spitting out at Cairo and striking terror into those below.

Screams rattled the air. Citizens fled for cover, desperate to shelter themselves from the supernatural phenomenon that was destroying their surroundings.

Everywhere in sight, the famous landmarks of Egypt were being devastated by the rocks.

"Holy shit!" Daniels cried, staring at everything with dumbfounded shock. "Holy _fuckin'_ jehosaphat!"

Perry's jaw dropped. Daniels grabbed her arm and tugged at it frantically.

"The Lord sent thunder and rained hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground... It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation," she whispered.

"This ain't the type of hail we have in America, sweetheart!" Daniels yelped. "Let's get out of here!"

He dragged her towards the nearest building, both of them sprinting to weave between the 'hailstones' that were hurled from the heavens.

"He's here," Perry panted as they burst through the front entrance of a hotel.

Daniels ran both of his hands over the top of his head.

"What do you mean?" he breathed. "Th-the thing that got Bernard?"

She nodded, twisting her hands along the strap of her satchel in nervousness.

Daniels puffed out a breath of air.

"Wh-why? What does he want with us, why us?"

Perry didn't want to tell him that it was because they had opened that chest. Yes, it was the Americans' own fault, but reminding Daniels of his friends' mistakes wasn't going to gain them anything right now.

"Where is Mr. Burns?" she asked him.

He seemed thrown off by the question.

"Uh... He's back at our suite."

_Burns is the most vulnerable,_ Perry thought. _Surely the creature will go for him first._

"We need to find him."

To their horror, they found entire bodies engulfed in flames outside. Every hailstone to hit the ground exploded like a bomb; fountains of rubble and dirt were bursting in every direction.

Daniels lead them both to the building in which the Americans had taken up their lodgings, and upon nearing it, Perry found that her thought process had been shared by another pair of people.

Jonathan and Henderson almost ran straight into them.

"Jonathan!"

"Perry!"

They all skidded to halts.

"The water turned to blood!" Henderson told Daniels, who really seemed too overwhelmed to be picky about believing him.

Jonathan was panting heavily.

"Perry," he breathed. "Where have you been? I was worried!"

She narrowed her eyes.

"Where have _I_ been?" she snapped. "Not as busy as you and Marina, clearly!"

Jonathan shut his mouth and rubbed the back of his neck, guiltily avoiding everybody's eyes.

"Who's Marina?" Daniels asked, cluelessly.

"Never mind!"

They ascended the stairs, running as fast as possible, and then Henderson stopped in his tracks. Daniels ran into his back, Perry ran into Daniels, and Jonathan ran into Perry.

"_Oof_!"

"Did you hear that?" Henderson asked them, voice quiet with fear.

They listened, and then a monstrous roar sounded out from up ahead.

"That came from our suite!" Daniels shrieked. "It's in there with Burns!"

Suddenly, gunshots sounded, and they all took off in a sprint again.

Jonathan and Perry pushed in front of the Americans as the four of them bolted through the doorway, but skidded to a halt when they saw what awaited them in this room.

Rick and Evie were glued in place, just ahead.

The corpse of Bernard Burns — dried out and brown and foul-looking— was slumped in his chair.

And at the other end of the room stood the mummy, Imhotep.

Rick began firing his guns.

_Didn't he listen to Ardeth Bay?_ Perry thought. _The creature cannot be killed by mortal weapons!_

Her thoughts were demonstrated when Imhotep advanced in O'Connell's direction, the bullets tearing straight through his distorted physique and not phasing him in the slightest.

The creature outstretched his hands and prepared to attack Rick, who froze in horror.

Imhotep grabbed him, and in one effortless motion, flung him backwards through the air.

As O'Connell's body hurtled straight towards the crowd by the door, Jonathan roughly shoved Perry out of harm's way. She flew to the ground, smacking her skull on the hard floor as Rick crushed he and the Americans.

Jonathan had good intentions, but she would probably still end up with a nasty bruise and a headache.

Sitting up and rubbing her head, she opened her eyes to a deep, rasping voice and little, squeaky noises of panic emanating from Evelyn.

Evie was cornered by the creature, the walking corpse just millimetres from her face.

_Why Evie?_ Perry thought. _She didn't open the chest..._

The day was saved when a cat— Evelyn's fluffy white cat, no less— meowed loudly and jumped onto the nearby piano, pressing a variety of keys in a jumbled tune.

Imhotep spun around. His face became a picture of torment, and thankfully he leaped away from Evelyn. In a billowing hurricane of sand and screams, he vanished out of the window, evaporating as if he was never there in the first place.

Silence.

Then, Rick said,

"We are in very. Serious. Trouble."


	16. Chapter 16

**Okay, so this is really kind of a short chapter, and I've **_**tried**_** to cut down the movie dialogue, but blegh. The next one makes up for it, though. So here ya go.**

**CHAPTER 16**

When Evie decided that they would head to the Museum of Antiquities, Perry didn't disagree; she wanted to report back to Dr. Bey and Ardeth.

However, she was so busy bickering with Jonathan on the journey there that she failed to fill everybody else in on her newly acquired knowledge regarding the Medjai.

"I can't believe you slept with Marina." she hissed at him as they got out of his car.

"Neither can I," Jonathan sighed dreamily, barely repressing a cheeky smirk.

Evie and O'Connell were talking to Daniels and Henderson, so they weren't in danger of being overheard.

Perry huffed.

"While I was running around Cairo like some sort of mug, you were shagging your ex-girlfriend."

Jonathan shut his car door and shrugged.

"It was an animal instinct!" he whispered. "If we're going to die, I may as well make a bit of whoopee with the love of my life, mightn't I?"

Perry frowned.

"You told me Gretchen was the love of your life."

They followed the other four up the steps at the front of the museum. The land all around was freckled with ash from the hailstorm.

Jonathan squinted, racking his brains.

"Who?"

Perry rolled her eyes.

"When we were talking about Daisy and Gatsby," she reminded him. "You said you were in love with a Gretchen."

They museum doors shut behind the group of six as they pushed through them. Evie lead them down the darkened corridors.

Jonathan tutted.

"Because Evie was sat beside me!" he said. "If I'd said Marina, she would have gone ballistic. She _hates_ Marina. Girl broke my heart, remember?"

"I don't understand you." Perry muttered.

Playfully grabbing her waist and pulling her into his side, he chuckled.

"You just don't understand relationships, my dear, sweet Arab virgin!"

She pulled a face and shoved him away from her, causing him to stumble and bash into a wall.

"Can you two stop messing around, please?" Evie snapped, seeming flustered. "We're not really in the position to laugh."

Jonathan childishly mimicked her words behind her back, sticking his tongue out and then acting nonchalant when his sister glanced back at him.

"Yes, and back on the subject of this mummy," he said, serious now. "He seems to like Evie."

"Yeah, what's that about?" Rick asked.

Daniels' thick accent followed the question.

"What's this guy want?"

"There's only one person I know that can probably give us the answer..." Evie said.

Perry, at the back of their troupe, suddenly realised that Evie would be finding Dr. Bey soon.

Which meant she had some explaining to do.

"Jonathan..." she whispered, poking him on the back. "There's something I forgot to—"

"You!"

_Too late, Perry._

Evie had stopped abruptly as they rounded a corner, and at her exclamation, the surrounding men whipped their guns out.

Perry pushed past Jonathan to have her presumptions confirmed: Terence and Ardeth were indeed stood talking in this room.

"Miss. Carnahan," Terence addressed the librarian. "Gentlemen."

Perry rushed into the space between the Medjai and her friends.

"No! Don't shoot!" she insisted. "It's not what you think!"

She held her hands up in defence, pleading with them to pause and lower their guns.

"What is _he_ doing here?" Evie asked, not happy with Ardeth's presence.

Terence calmly looked from Ardeth to the group.

"Do you really want to know," he asked, coolly, "or would you prefer to just... shoot us?"

Rick put his gun back in its holster.

"After what I just saw, I'm willing to go on a little faith, here."

**XxXxXx**

In time, they all fell into place around the room, intently listening to what Dr. Bey had to say.

Jonathan had climbed up onto a display in the manner of a ten-year-old, which Perry wished he wouldn't have but didn't possess the energy to scold him for. Instead, she leaned on the back of a golden, hieroglyph-covered throne and listened as the conversations rolled on.

Ardeth stood quite close by, and studied Jonathan like a zoo animal as he messed around in the display. After a while, he turned to Perry.

"Your husband is going to break something." he said, quietly.

Perry's eyes grew wide.

"He's _not_ my husband!" she whispered. "He's my employer! I'm his assistant!"

Ardeth looked skeptically between she and Jonathan, and then forgot the conversation entirely.

Marina had made the same assumption earlier.

_Why does everybody think I'm his wife?_ Perry thought.

Until he later took a seat on the chair on which she leaned, Terence paced the room like a lecturer. He explained everything about the Medjai, their quest, Imhotep's powers of regeneration, and his fear of cats.

The Americans showed particular anguish at the mention of the creature 'killing everyone who opened that chest' and 'suckin' em dry'.

Perched up in the display, Jonathan began fiddling with things he wasn't supposed to be fiddling with, and Perry was forced to reassume the role of Mr. Carnahan's babysitter. Or, scornful wife, apparently.

"Jonathan! Stop playing with that!" she snapped. The man-child jumped and let go of the bow he held, almost knocking over a Pharaoh mannequin in the process.

Evie went on talking about Imhotep.

"When I saw him alive at Hamunaptra, he called me Anck-su-namun," she said. "And, um, just now in Mr. Burns' quarters, he—he tried to kiss me."

Perry had been wondering about the creature's particular interest in Evelyn, and so she watched with interest as Ardeth and Terence exchanged a worried look of realisation.

"It's because of his love for Anck-su-namun that he was cursed." Terence said. "Apparently, even after three thousand years—"

"—He's still in love with her." Ardeth finished.

"Yes, well, that's very romantic, but what's it got to do with me?" Evie asked.

Ardeth and Terence seemed to be communicating telepathically by now.

"Perhaps he will once again try—"

"—Try to raise her from the dead."

Perry scoffed, causing both men to look at her in puzzlement. She folded her arms and laughed a little.

"That's impossible, though," she said. "Pardon my ignorance, but the transmigration of souls doesn't exist. Reincarnation is of the falsest of false beliefs."

Ardeth frowned.

"You have seen the creature with your own eyes, and yet you stand here and judge what is possible and impossible?" he asked.

Perry's eyes fell to the floor.

Embarrassment heated her face, though she knew she shouldn't have felt it for keeping her faith in mind.

She twisted her lips and shrugged.

"It's not like he can just pull a Dr. Frankenstein and electrocute her corpse, though." she mumbled.

"No," Ardeth agreed. "To resurrect her, he would need a fresh body for her soul to inhabit."

Terence's eyes roamed across the room and landed on Evelyn.

"And it appears he's already chosen his human sacrifice."

Evie stood, quiet and uncomfortable, under everybody's gaze.

And Jonathan chose that moment to make the most inappropriately lighthearted comment possible.

"Bad luck, old mum."

Terence stood, as an idea seemed to form in his mind.

"On the contrary," he said, walking towards the unfortunate woman. "It may just give us the time we need to kill the creature."

Perry looked over at Ardeth and noticed that he was staring at the ceiling. He took a few steps forward, completely preoccupied with the roof.

"We will need all the help we can get," he said. "His powers are growing."

Perry stepped out from around the back of the golden chair to stand at the tall Medjai's side. Rick and Evie stood up; Jonathan's attention was caught now, too.

Ardeth was staring at the skylight, the glass dome at the top of the museum from which the heavens could be observed.

Through it, they watched as a full solar eclipse took place.

"And he stretched forth his hand towards the heavens..." Jonathan recited the plague as written in the Old Testament. "And there was darkness throughout the land of Egypt."


	17. Chapter 17

**CHAPTER 17**

If you had told Pyrrah Ananaka a week beforehand that she would willingly be spending time with Dr. Terence Bey, she would have laughed in your face.

But that was exactly what she was doing, and nobody was laughing.

They were scouring the remains of the museum stacks, trying to find any piece of information that they could possibly use to help them in their quest to stop Imhotep.

Jonathan had not protested when she suggested staying; secretly, she suspected, he would have much preferred spending the evening in the company of the Medjai himself.

But Rick had dragged the other four away, and Perry was left only with Terence and Ardeth.

"Was Imhotep a Theban High Priest of Amun?" she asked Dr. Bey.

The curator paused to think.

"Yes, I believe he was."

In the very room that Perry had searched earlier for Marina's books, Terence and she were rummaging through piles of textbooks like scavenging animals.

Night was falling, and the eclipse was quickly being overshadowed by the metamorphosing of bronze sky into black.

Lamps and candles were all the light they had in the depths of the stacks, and the museum felt considerably smaller with the lack of illumination.

Presently, Perry was sat on the floor, legs crossed, with an incredibly heavy book on the Ancient Theban hierarchy spread out in her lap.

She had a minor headache— most probably from Jonathan's earlier shove— and so had used it as an excuse to steal Terence's glasses.

Dr. Bey himself wasn't too far away from her, searching through a pile of flattened parchment papers.

Ardeth was sat atop a fallen bookshelf, watching them work and lazily flicking through the pages of a book on burial customs.

"Why do you ask?" Terence questioned, his voice monotonous.

She prodded the open pages before her.

"Well, the Amun priesthood exercised an effective stranglehold on Egypt's economy. The Amun priests owned two-thirds of all the temple lands in Egypt, and ninety percent of her ships, plus many other resources."

Terence sighed, exasperatedly.

"What use to us is that information?"

Perry climbed to her feet, hoisting the massive book up as she navigated through the wreckage of the library.

"Well, maybe he would want to return to one of those places?" she suggested.

"No," Ardeth said. She looked over her shoulder at him. "He will only be concerned with Anck-su-namun's resurrection."

Perry dropped the book down on a table with a thud.

"Well, where is he now? He can't regenerate unless he kills people, and we've no word of that yet."

Ardeth frowned, but supplied no answer.

She sighed, and turned to fully face the warrior at the other side of the room.

"Okay... What about Anck-su-namun? Is there any information about her that could be useful?"

"She was Seti I's concubine," he said. "They were set to be married."

Perry folded her arms and made her way towards him, nodding as she kept her balance between heaps of books.

"But then Imhotep stepped into the picture?" she asked.

"Yes." Ardeth said. "She could never be free from her role as a concubine unless the Pharaoh was dead, and his son might act as successor. And so—"

"—They killed him." Perry finished.

"And they were caught by the Medjai, Anck-su-namun killed herself, Imhotep tried to resurrect her, and the Hom-Dai curse was placed on him!" Dr. Bey barked from his side of the room. "We already know! _None_ of this is new information to us!"

He stormed out of the room, shouting as he went,

"This girl is useless!"

Perry's spirits sunk.

"Just when I thought we were getting along..." she mumbled to the ground.

Ardeth watched her, quietly.

"He does not mean to hurt your feelings, I am sure."

Perry scoffed.

Taking Terence's glasses off, she took a seat next to him on the fallen bookshelf.

"Oh, don't worry, he's never liked me. At least, not since I was smart enough to punch a man in front of him."

Ardeth raised an eyebrow at her, and then looked off at the far wall.

"Yes, you punched one of my men during our first encounter," he said. "He was not too happy when he regained consciousness."

She shrugged, and gave a light chuckle.

"I needed his sword. I thought you were going to decapitate me, Mr. Bay." Perry raised her fingers to the cut on her cheekbone, trailing them along its curve. "You weren't too far from it, actually."

Feeling eyes on her, she soon felt his fingertips on her chin. Taking her largely by surprise, he turned her head towards him.

Perry stayed perfectly still. The man gently brushed his thumb along the cut.

"I am terribly sorry." he said.

His face may not have portrayed as many animated expressions as Jonathan or Rick's, but he had taken on a look of unmistakable concern.

She had been right— he _had_ been concerned that night. Which meant he hadn't intended to harm her at all.

"How come you didn't just cut me down in that fight?" she asked him. In such close proximity, she was forced to lower her voice. "I am no Medjai. It would have been easy for you."

His hand fell from her wound, and his gaze roamed off to the walls again. She watched him, awaiting a reply.

The answer he finally gave, however, was not one she had been expecting.

"I know you."

Her heart jumped.

"What?"

Keeping his eyes on anywhere but she, Ardeth let out a sigh, as if he was already regretting his words.

"I think... We have met before."

She turned her entire body around to face him, anxious to hear more. This revelation had just confirmed all that had made her question her sanity this last few days.

"I recognised you, too!" she exclaimed. "I knew it, I know you! I know you!"

Ardeth seemed to forget his doubts when she burst out with such excitement. He looked back at her, eyes agleam with the tiniest trace of hope.

"You speak the truth?" he asked.

She nodded, vigorously, and beamed at him.

"I felt as if I knew you, from the moment I saw you... But I have no memories of such an encounter, Ardeth."

He frowned.

"This does not make sense," he said to himself. "What is your name?"

She blinked. Up until now, he only knew her as Perry: Jonathan's assistant.

Or, apparently, Perry: Jonathan's wife.

"Pyrrah. Pyrrah Ananka." she told him.

Ardeth shook his head.

Disappointment began to set itself in Perry's mind. Clearly, her answer hadn't been the one he was looking for.

"A thought has struck me!" Terence Bey shouted, as he stormed back into the room.

Perry was glad for the distraction. She cleared her throat, and composed herself.

The curator stopped in front of the pair of them.

"The book that your friends read from... It was made of pure obsidian?" he asked.

"Uh, yes," she replied. "Ardeth said it was the Book of the Dead."

Terence folded his hands behind his back and pursed his lips, looking at her with expectant condescendence. He was waiting for her to figure something out.

"Surely you know, Miss. Ananka, that nothing as powerful as the Book of the Dead is ever created without something of equal importance to counteract its performances." he said.

Perry narrowed her eyes at him.

"Are you talking about the Book of Amun-Ra?"

Dr. Bey nodded.

"The Book of the Living."

She and Ardeth exchanged a look. His mind frame was that of a Medjai once more.

"Of course," he said. "It can be used to take the life away from things."

"Would that work on the creature? As you said, he is not a mere mortal." Perry asked.

The Medjai looked uncertain.

"I don't know." Terence sighed. "But it could certainly be used to reverse any further damage the Book of the Dead might cause."

"Wait." Ardeth said. They looked at him. "Who was the last person in possession of the book?"

Perry thought about it.

"Dr. Chamberlain," she whispered. "And he is one of the creature's targets. If Imhotep were to find him—"

"—He would be in possession of the book. Something which would be of great assistance to him in his quest to reincarnate Anck-su-namun." Terence finished.

There was a ghostly pause, in which the amount of dead-ends and awful scenarios in their path became strikingly obvious.

"It is essential we find the Book of Amun-Ra." Ardeth stated.

"There's one problem with that," Perry said. "We have no bloody clue where it is."

"Young lady," Terence addressed her. "Run along to my office and fetch my book on the Egyptian pantheon. Hurry."

She nodded and stood up, striding over books as she made a beeline for the hall.

"Wait, Perry," Ardeth called out to her before she could leave.

Both Terence and she turned to him in question. The Medjai rose to his feet, but hesitated before continuing.

"If I were to say to you, 'I am a stranger traveling from the East, seeking that which is lost'..." he asked her. "How would you reply?"

His words hung in the air with daunting confidence, like her answer would make or break some promise that she had never avowed to.

Even Dr. Bey looked intrigued to hear her answer.

There was a nagging feeling in the back of Perry's mind, the same one that surfaced when she had first seen Ardeth. The flutter of a memory, some part of her that desperately wanted to let the words of the reply roll off her tongue.

She _knew_ the answer.

"I... Don't know."

But no words came to her mind. Her brain was blank, frustratingly so.

"I'm sorry."

Ardeth looked defeated. Terence ushered Perry along, and with reluctance, she left the crestfallen warrior.

Once she had scuttled away, the curator raised his eyebrows at the younger man.

"What was that about?" he asked.

His companion frowned in puzzlement yet again.

There was a missing element to this mystery, something that didn't add up. But he wasn't one to admit defeat easily.

"Do you remember Dossari Al-Amed?" he asked.

"Well, of course," Terence responded. "The greatest chieftain our tribe has seen in centuries."

Ardeth pointed a finger at Terence, as if to pinpoint that remark.

"His wife," he said. "What was her name?"

Terence seemed perplexed by this little investigation, but huffed and answered the man.

"Well, as odd as the query is... I believe it was Aloli," he said. "Aloli Ananka."


	18. Chapter 18

**So, here we see the word "****bogárkám" used, which means "little bug". Because, apparently, Hungarian terms of affection are a bit different to those used in other languages, and may be considered… **_**odd**_**.**

**I, however, think it's cute. :)**

**So… on with the chapter. Hope you enjoy!**

**CHAPTER 18**

Marina Quatermain rarely visited Egypt.

When she did, it was usually on diplomatic business, to meet with people whose excavations she was funding, or make the acquaintance of her father's associates for the sake of publicity. From time to time, she would oversee a dig.

But for the past decade or so, she had largely avoided the sandy country, and its capital of Cairo in particular.

The reason for her aversion to the city? Jonathan Carnahan.

Or rather, the twinge of guilt that flickered through her heart when she heard the Carnahan name.

She had been fifteen when love had swept her up in its embrace, and the boy she had known since they were young became more than somebody to cause harmless trouble with.

Jonathan was sixteen, and only fell further and further into a boundless love with her once their feelings had been expressed in that physical way. The effect their lovemaking had had on Marina, however, differed greatly: to her, a new world had been opened up.

Men became pieces of meat in her eyes, and she wanted to sample every steak, and drink and smoke and laugh and be free.

Live fast, die young; the glamour of someone of her class living life to the fullest far succeeded whatever benefits staying with Jonathan may have brought.

Freedom was what she sought most, and the taste of that was sweeter than commitment and marriage and love.

By the time she let him go, Jonathan seemed clingy in her eyes. She hadn't wanted to seem cruel, and had no intention of hurting the poor boy, but the world was her oyster ready for the shucking.

It wasn't until years later, when the notion of sleeping with a different man every night had long lost its sparkle, that she realised what she had given up when she was young. A good man was hard to find, and she had thrown away the one that fell for her.

Rather than delve back into the past and attempt to redeem herself in Jonathan Carnahan's eyes, she kept moving forward. She forgot Jonny and romance and Cairo altogether.

Relationships weren't within her ambitions anymore, and so she avoided them.

Until three years ago, when her father had invited her to accompany him on a trip to wintery Budapest. There, the strangest little Hungarian man had caught her eye, and the affair that she indulged in with him somehow stretched through time, until she found herself deliberately making trips to Egypt to see him.

Five days ago, as they lay in her bed in the sweltering heat of the afternoon, Beni Gabor had puffed on a cigar she'd bought him and told her of his newest money-making scheme: escorting American expeditionaries to the fabled city of the dead, Hamunaptra. And she had laughed in his face.

Beni was a thief. A sly little weasel of a man, rotten and dirty and so below her standards of a lover that it was ridiculous. Yet, she found herself addicted to him. To his personality, like he was a narcotic. He was Marina's opium, and she would surely die before she could wean herself off of him.

Which was why, when his fists pummeled her front door, she rushed to the sound of his whiny voice.

"Marina! Let me in!"

She had been stood on her veranda, observing the golden haze that Egypt was left in after the darkness of the solar eclipse, and smoking a cigarette.

Thoughts of Jonathan were clouding her mind: thoughts of how wonderful this afternoon had been, of how passionately his soul still ached for her. That much was obvious, and she felt lighter for having been with him.

It was like a breath of fresh air, as if she had been baptised by his kisses.

The guilt had all but faded, but when Beni came knocking she was reminded of the loose knots of her life she had yet to tie.

The second she unlocked the door, he was inside her quarters, jumpy and sweaty and nervous as always.

"Beni, what are you doing here?" she asked, tiredly.

His eyes were shifty, instinctively speeding around the room in search of danger, or the lack thereof.

"Marina, Marina, my darling, I have good news."

Judging by the crazy look in his eyes, Beni didn't have good news at all. In fact, her perception of good news was as different from his as any two perceptions of the term could get.

"Beni, I don't care." she said.

That weary grin bared his teeth.

"Now, now," he said, narrow shoulders dropping as he calmed slightly. "You are not going to welcome me back from my trip?"

He moved close to her, so that she could smell the sand and dirt on his clothes. Staring unhappily into his wide, icy eyes— the captive eyes that had caught her attention three years ago— she felt his fingers creep onto her hips and give her flesh a squeeze.

"I've found someone else, I don't need you anymore." she said, although her voice was so diffident that she knew it wasn't going to convince anyone.

He laughed, his whiny cackle sending a shiver down her neck.

"I think you will take that back shortly, bogárkám," he said, dipping his head so that his lips brushed against her neck.

He placed a kiss, turning her skin to gooseflesh, and then another on her collarbone. Marina stared at the ceiling, and sighed lightly.

"Why would I take it back?" she whispered.

His hands slithered up to her waist, and when he spoke, it was almost inaudible against her shoulder.

"You will take it back when you hear who I am working for."

She frowned, and pressed her palms against his chest. With a little heave, she pushed him away from her.

"Beni, what are you talking about?"

He chuckled again, and ignored her decline of his affections. Stepping back into her, it took that whimpering laugh to shorten Marina's patience.

Losing her temper, she smacked his hands off of her and shoved his thin frame backwards.

"Beni!" she yapped. "Tell me what you're trying to say!"

Beni wasn't one for taking people seriously without the involvement of money or violence, but her little snap surprised him enough to rouse an answer.

"Imhotep."

Marina froze.

"As in—"

"You know who I am talking about."

When Jonathan had recounted their trip to Hamunaptra to her, he had avoided mentioning Beni for as long as possible. When she finally asked of his fate, his assistant had told her he hadn't ridden home with them.

Now, it was clear to her why he had disappeared: his allegiance was with something entirely different.

She looked him up and down with disgust, her throat clogging up with emotion.

"You bastard." she spat.

Beni smirked at her.

"You don't understand," he said, moving in to her body again. "Think of my fate when the harbinger of doom brings forth his reign. He will spare my life if I am allied with him."

Anger boiling over, she tried to swipe at him, tried to strike out and hit his ferret-like little body in any way she could. But Beni caught her wrists, and jammed her arms into the wall. She was pinned back, unable to do anything but shake her head.

"I knew you were the scum of society," she snarled. "But I didn't know you were so despicable that the most evil forces could whore you out."

Had fear driven him to lose the last of his sanity?

"A man must do wicked things to survive," Beni said, face inches from hers as he let his eyes roam across the contours of her nose and lips. "A little rich girl like yourself would not understand, my sweet."

"You don't look like much of a man from where I'm standing." she whispered.

The straw that broke the camel's back was the reappearance of that mocking, yellow grin. Out of pure loathing, Marina lifted her leg and fiercely jammed her knee into Beni's family jewels.

He cried out some incomprehensible swear word in Hungarian and doubled over in pain. She pushed him off of her and vaulted for the door handle, but Beni still had hold of one of her wrists.

He yanked her back towards him, and she had no time to brace herself for the strike he delivered to her face with the back of his hand.

"You bitch," he said. Even when he was angry, Beni's voice was still high and shaky, like he was suffering. "Now look what you have made me do."

Covering her face where he had struck her, the tears of fury that blurred Marina's vision didn't do well enough to obstruct her view of his thin, looming face.

"Shhh, now," Beni said. He brushed her hair away from her cheek and stroked it. "It pains me to see you cry, bogárkám. It really does."

He kissed her lips, then, something that she didn't make any response to at first. But Beni Gabor was Marina Quatermain's opium, so it only took a pathetic second or two for her mouth to twitch in response.

She kissed him back; the facts that Beni was working for Imhotep and she had slept with Jonathan didn't slip her mind as easily as they should have.

"I must go now," he told her, pulling away. "If you decide that you do not want to die at the hands of my master, you know where to find me."

Void of any single emotion, she watched him reach for the door handle and shook her head.

"Fools like you share a common motto, Beni, but you all end up regretting it."

He paused before stepping out into the corridor.

"And what might that be, my dear Marina?"

Elegantly wiping her tears away, she held her head high to glare daggers at him with glassy eyes.

"It is better to be at the right hand of the devil than in his path."

Beni smirked.

"It certainly is."

**XxXxXx**

"Marina?"

She didn't move for the longest time. Slumped against the fleur-de-lis wallpaper, it was only when the craving for a cigarette became too much to bear that she went and fetched her pack of Luckies.

She was sitting on the sofa, finding comfort in the smell of the tobacco, when Jonathan's voice reached her ears.

The front door creaked open. Beni had left it unlocked.

"Marina?"

Jonathan stepped into the room, eyes searching for her with confusion. When he caught sight of Marina, she gave him a despairing look that made him hurry over to her side.

Carelessly dropping her cigarette, she stood and buried her face in his chest. Jonathan consoled her, the reasons for her sobs that followed unknown to he, stroking her hair and hushing her tearful hiccups.

"Err, hope I'm not interrupting anything," Rick's voice asked from the doorway. "But what's going on?"

Jonathan gave him a clueless look, and then brought Marina's face up to look at him.

"What's wrong, old mum?" he asked.

Pulling herself together, she sniffed and wiped her eyes.

"Beni's working for Imhotep," she told Jonathan.

"_What?_" Rick snapped.

Marina looked around Jonathan to get a glimpse of the American man in the doorway.

"Who are you?"

"Rick O'Connell," he told her. "You know Beni Gabor?"

Marina nodded.

"He's a friend of mine."

Rick narrowed his eyes at the ceiling, giving it a sardonic look as if Beni's face was plastered up there.

"Funny," he said. "He keeps telling me I'm his only friend."

Marina ignored the strange remark and stepped out of Jonathan's arms. The doors to the veranda were still open, and a breeze made her feel cold without his contact.

She straightened the lapels of his jacket and sniffed again.

"Any idea where he's headed?" Rick asked.

Marina began to fiddle with one of Jonathan's shirt buttons.

"His place, probably. If you want to catch him, you should hurry along."

Rick nodded and made to leave, but when Jonathan turned to follow him, she didn't let go of his jacket.

"You get a head start, O'Connell, I'll catch up," he told Rick, who took off with the thought of physically abusing Beni in mind.

Jonathan looked down at Marina.

"Are you alright?"

_No,_ she wanted to tell him.

She turned his shirt button around each way in her fingers.

She wasn't going to undo it, but the need to take in little details of Jonathan had crept into her mind like a climbing vine.

"You're too good for me, Jonny." she said.

Jonathan paused, not knowing if she was serious, and so went directly to making a joke.

"Well, I know I'm a catch and all, but—"

"No, I mean it. You can't stay with me."

Jonathan stepped back and held her at arm's length, checking her face for any signs that this was some strange antic.

But Marina was, unfortunately, as sincere as ever.

His face fell.

"Wh… What do you mean, darling?"

That need to absorb the little details of the man she had been avoiding for a decade made her raise a hand and place it gently on the side of his face.

"You're a good man, Jonathan Carnahan," she said. "And I'm not deserving of that."

Planting a chaste kiss on his lips, she let go of the shirt button and nodded to the door.

"You best get going. Follow your friend. Give Beni a good bollocking."

Jonathan hesitated, his features tormented with confusion, but eventually rushed over to the door. He paused beside it.

"I don't understand— are you saying we're... we're over?" he asked, shaking his head frustratedly. "Are we even together?"

She smiled. Typical Jonathan, never questioning the clarity of something until it was all but broken.

"We'll talk when you've dealt with this mummy business," she said. "Now, go!"

Jonathan took her word for it and disappeared into the hallway, leaving her with her lovers on her mind and regret in her heart.


	19. Chapter 19

**So this takes place after the scene where Rick 'interrogates' Beni. You know, where he throws a chair at him and holds him up near the fan and stuff? Yeah, after that one, after Imhotep sucks the life out of Dr. Chamberlain. Have fun.**

**CHAPTER 19**

"That's two down, two to go."

"They're gonna be coming after Evie."

The intermingled screams and buzzing of insects in the street still made their way to Jonathan's ears after he and Rick slammed the window shut.

"Right," O'Connell said, mind set on action. "You go bring the car around. I'll go see if I can't catch up to Beni."

And he ran away, feet thundering across the floorboards as he sprinted from the room.

Jonathan, awkwardly left behind, craned his neck to see if his American comrade was still in sight of the hallway.

"So you're just leaving me... With that mummy fellow wandering around..." he called, confirming the concreteness of his fate.

There was no response. Rick had left.

He shifted his weight and let out a breath, nodding in a halfhearted attempt to reassure himself.

"Yeah, alright. Fine."

The car was parked a block away, and to avoid running into a crowd of insect-ravaged civilians, Jonathan was forced to cut down a dark little alleyway.

The cobbled streets were damp, and lines of clothes that were hung out to dry flapped in the wind above the squint buildings.

Perry certainly wouldn't be too fond of this shortcut, he thought, thanking God that he didn't suffer from claustrophobia or any dislike of darkness. The ramshackle houses in this slummy area looked as if they were going to collapse inwards any moment.

Fearless mentality, false as it may have been, manifested itself in the form of quick steps and determined thoughts, but all of that went to waste when he saw a figure step into the alleyway.

Jonathan froze on the spot, his imagination spiraling out into visions of Imhotep and his massive, unlatching jaw and beetle-infested skin.

Dr. Chamberlain's withered corpse was not what he intended to model his physique on.

But relief arrived when he realised that this figure definitely didn't belong to Imhotep— it was squirmy, and shaky, and jumpy. There was a crash as the thin body tripped over a trash can, disappearing from view with a wince and a clatter of metal.

_Well, I never,_ Jonathan thought, _it's our rat-bastard friend._

A dog barked in the distance, covering the sound of Jonathan's footsteps as he headed in the direction of the collapsed man.

Beni's movements were unmistakable, his breath rattly and familiar to even somebody as estranged to him as Jonathan. The Hungarian pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, getting a considerable fright when he saw somebody sprinting straight towards him.

"Hey! Stop right there!" Jonathan shouted.

Beni flinched, prepared to turn and flee. When he realised it was Carnahan he faced, and not O'Connell, he paused.

Out of breath, he squinted at Jonathan while he came to a halt. He wasn't afraid.

"You're not going to beat me," he panted.

Jonathan caught his own breath, and frowned.

"How do you know?" he spat, rather insulted. "I should, seeing as you upset my friend."

Beni frowned, now. Shoulders lazily hunched, he looked practically sleepy. Prepared to run, but in a sort of drunk way.

"O'Connell?" He snickered. "I was his friend first."

Jonathan rolled his eyes and tutted.

"I'm not talking about O'Connell, I'm talking about Marina."

Beni's half-smirk disappeared. He blinked droplets of sweat out of his shifty eyes, face embittered and twitchy.

Jonathan eyed him, inadvertently keeping his chest proud and his head high. Right now, between he and the slouching, panting Hungarian, he looked like more of a man. And that was just what he wanted.

Imhotep had left the two of their minds altogether.

Beni tiredly pointed a finger at Jonathan.

"You know Marina Quatermain?"

The Englishman nodded, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet.

"I do, as a matter of fact. Very well."

Beni let out a loud snort.

Jonathan fell still, tilting his head to glare at his rival in question.

"I doubt you know Marina Quatermain better than I do, barátom." Beni snickered, his smirk resurfacing.

Even in the dark his enamel looked yellow, framed by a tiny moustache and beads of sweat that soaked moonlight into his pores. His icy eyes gleamed with mirthful amusement, making Jonathan wonder what the joke was.

_He's a friend_, Marina had said. She had hesitated, though, and the look on her face screamed 'lie'. Jonathan knew as well as she did that Beni was not just a friend. But he had pushed it to the back of his mind, because love made one do the most senseless things.

In this moment, he continued to deny it.

"What do you mean?" he asked, words almost mumbled.

Satisfaction of luck flickered across Beni's face, rippling in a twitch from his eyebrows to his lips. He had been dying to receive such a naive question, and the answer sprung from between his teeth with a chuckle.

"I know her inside and out," he said. "And I am sure you know what I mean in saying that."

Jonathan stood still, and then shifted his weight to the other foot. He felt the need to clear his throat, but repressed it at he repressed the urge to punch Beni in the face. He was raised a gentleman, far more intelligent and collected than the likes of Beni, and with Marina in mind he kept his demeanour so.

"Well, I'm sure whatever you're talking about is meaningless." he settled on saying.

"Meaningless enough to last three years?" Beni asked. Humour made his words shrill.

_Bastard._

The sheer smugness that tickled him made Jonathan's blood boil. If there was one thing all those fancy European boarding schools his parents sent him to had taught him, it was how to fight. Upper class boys were nasty pieces of work, bred to sniff out people's weaknesses, so Jonathan's fists had gotten him far as a teenager. And right now, Beni Gabor was practically begging to see his right-hook.

"I don't care what you and Marina had," he stated, louder now. "It's over. Finished."

Beni raised an eyebrow.

"And what makes you so sure that Marina's feelings for me are dead? You cannot dictate her choices, my friend."

"I'm not telling Marina to keep away from you," Jonathan snapped. "I'm telling _you_ to keep away from _her_. Or you'll have _me_ to deal with."

The smirk disappeared from Beni's face, and his fragile-looking frame rose to its full height out of slouch. He glanced over his shoulder, looking for escapes, clocking exits, and then back at his opponent.

"I'm afraid that my master will see to your demise before she is reunited with either of us. Your words are petty—"

Jonathan lunged forward, fist swinging for Beni's face before he could finish his sentence.

His shot missed, however, as that cat-like man bolted backwards and skidded across the cobbles, stabilising his footing and taking off in a sprinting flee.

Jonathan watched his lanky figure disappear into the darkness, consistent whining perhaps working like some form of echolocation.

"Son of a gun," he muttered.

Then he remembered that O'Connell was waiting for the car somewhere, and took off at his own quickened pace to where the automobile was parked.

This encounter between he and Beni would have to remain a secret from Rick, a secret from Evie, and certainly a secret from Marina.

**a/n: Okay, so this was just a short chapter, but it's been a funny week and I've hardly been able to focus on this at all. So, sorry friends.**

**Plus, there are chapters of stories I am enjoying greatly (you know who you are) that have been posted and I have not yet reviewed, but I will be doing that ASAP.**

**As for this story, more is to come very soon! And thanks as always for the continued support!**

**- Anne**


	20. Chapter 20

**So, this chapter is **_**ridiculously**_** long, and contains quite a bit of movie dialogue... However, it's all pretty vital stuff that wasn't easy to skim over. So, sorry.**

**(Oh, also, it's highly likely that the events at the beginning of this chapter would not have **_**actually**_** had enough time to take place between the scenes, but for the story's sake please ignore continuity and sensibility.) Just enjoy.**

**CHAPTER 20**

"Do you ever bring any _good_ news with you?"

Perry had officially drawn upon the conclusion that all Westerners were cursed.

Upon their return to the Museum of Antiquities, O'Connell, the Carnahans and Daniels had informed her of the demises of Henderson and Dr. Chamberlain, and of Imhotep's possession of the Book of the Dead.

If that wasn't bad fortune, she didn't know what was.

"I have some good news," Jonathan said, when she met him at the museum doors. "We're not dead. How about you be appreciative of _that_, eh?"

Shooting her employer a sardonic look as she ushered him inside, Perry cut off the breeze flowing in by shutting and locking the museum door tightly. Terence had instructed her to do so, a request which had worried her in itself, and now it seemed the curator was on the minds of the others.

"Where's Dr. Bey?" Evelyn asked her.

Perry waved a hand flippantly towards the museum foyer.

"He and Ardeth are around. They'll be over here soon..."

Evie clearly didn't need more of an answer than that, for she spun around to talk to O'Connell about some pressing concern or another.

Perry caught sight of Mr. Daniels, who was still and frowning and pallid-looking. He hovered by the door, blinking at the marble floor as if he was hallucinating.

The man had just lost Mr. Henderson, and Mr. Burns earlier today. Yesterday, he had been part of a trio; now, he was the lone survivor of his friends.

Almost feeling heartbroken on the man's behalf, she moved over to his side in an attempt to provide some sympathy. It was probably well-needed, and Jonathan sure as hell wasn't going to give him any.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him.

Daniels' frown deepened, but he didn't look at her. A gruff clearing of his throat was his initial response.

"I've had better days, that's for sure."

His voice was quiet, which was disturbingly out of character for the Texan. To hear words that would normally be loud and emphasised with the twang of his country's south come out so dead and passionless was horrible. Expected, but horrible.

Perry placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I am sorry for your losses," she whispered. "...But your friends are resting now."

He scoffed, and shook his head at his shoes.

"Restin'... They oughtta be here, with me. Not restin'. Wasn't their time to go. Not yet."

David Daniels, as fiery as he usually was, was in despair. Perry wished she could tell him that, should they survive this ordeal, everything would be okay. That the loss of Burns and Henderson would pass. That the anguish would fade like the stars at dawn, and that things would be much as they were for him before.

But no comfort would be given, because that was when Jonathan (as sensitive as he was) decided to step into the picture.

"Perry, I need to talk to you," he said.

Much like a toddler trying to garner its mother's attention, he began to poke and shake and prod at her arm until she gave him her undivided attention.

She glared at him with wide eyes and discreetly nodded her head to Daniels, who was still taking interest in the floor.

Jonathan pulled a face with discomfort. He didn't want to deal with a man in grief, and so he _didn't_ deal with the man in grief— he just pulled Perry away from him a little more politely than he had first intended to.

"What is so important that it can't wait until later?" she hissed at him, as he dragged her into one of the museum's storage rooms. They were far away from Rick and Evie and Daniels now, out of sight and out of mind.

Jonathan shut the door and covered his face with his hands. Tiredly, he brought them up to run through his hair.

"Everything's buggered up, Perry." he said.

She let her anger dim to nothing, as she always did with Jonathan, and folded her arms over her chest.

"I know. There's a three-thousand-year old mummy trying to take over the world and kill us."

He shook his head, as if she didn't and wouldn't understand.

"No!" he stressed. "With me. With everything. I've gone and royally booted the hornet's nest up the arse."

He began pacing, shaking his head at the floor and winding round in patternless circles, like a confused dog trying to figure out which spot to sleep in.

"Is this because of Marina?" she asked.

A pained expression twisted his face.

"Yes." He stopped pacing and sighed. "I fooled around with her, and she's already got the likes of Beni Gabor in her bed. What was I thinking, Perry?"

Perry's eyebrows shot up with confused surprise.

"Beni Gabor? But—"

"—Yes! I mean, not anymore, because the bastard's working for Imhotep—"

"Beni's working for Imhotep?!"

"—Yes, but how many other pies does she have a finger in, here? I don't know what I'm getting myself into, and now she says I'm too good for her? What does _that_ rubbish mean?"

Perry held out her hands, motioning for him to stop speaking. There was silence as he put his dramatics on hold.

"Jonathan," she whispered. "Go back to the start, and tell me what happened since you left the museum."

Jonathan explained to her all that he and Rick had dealt with, about Marina, and about his hostile confrontation with Beni. By the time he had finished speaking, they were both sat on wooden crates, exhausted by the mere complication of Jonathan's thought process being put into words.

Perry sighed.

"It's not all that bad, actually."

Jonathan blew a raspberry in the air as some form of outraged scoff.

"From your point of view, maybe..."

His head was resting against a wooden box behind him, and utter melancholy had drawn him into looking drunk. Undoubtedly, Jonathan wished he _was_ drunk.

His assistant, however, believed he needed to get his priorities in order.

"Exactly," she said, sitting up to smile at him. "Your head is clouded. Because you're in love with her."

Jonathan eyed her in his peripheral vision.

No snarky response was quipped, which meant the truth had him stumped.

"Don't try and make me out to be like that Gatsby fellow, now."

She laughed.

"I'm not. Everything will just seem worse to you because you're not thinking logically."

_Although, I don't quite know when you're ever thinking logically,_ she thought.

He didn't look relieved by her words, nor comforted. In fact, he looked rather depressed. She told him to cheer up.

"It's just, everything's so bloody complicated," he said. "I wish I could go back to the way things were."

She wondered what 'were' pertained to. When his parents were alive? When his career was flourishing? When he had that bottle of Glen Livet?

"The way things were... when, exactly?"

He shrugged against the crates.

"Just here with you, darling. You seem to keep it simple."

A little smile crossed her face.

For all of that running around after Jonathan Carnahan she did— for dragging him out of seedy locations and rough situations, cleaning him up when he was in a bad state and convincing people not to beat him within an inch of his life— she had kept it _simple_ for him. She was his salvation.

Jonathan huffed.

"But things aren't so simple now, are they?"

She let her smile twist away.

"Tell me about it. I'm dealing with an identity crisis."

He looked up at her in question, and so she spent another while explaining to him the strange familiarity between she and Ardeth.

Jonathan looked truly outwitted by her situation.

"Maybe you knew each other when you were kids?" he suggested.

Perry frowned.

"I thought about that. But I lived in Alexandria with my mother until she died and I came to Cairo."

He let out a breath and got to his feet, knees popping as he did so. He seemed to have given up on her subject, and his next question was asked in boredom.

"And what was that like?"

She shrugged.

"I don't know. I don't have a lot of memories from my childhood. But then again, nobody does, do they?"

Jonathan had been facing the other wall, but that remark made him turn to look at her in puzzlement.

"Yes. I do. I certainly do. Don't you?"

Perry looked at him like he was suggesting something completely unrelated to their conversation so far.

"No. I know that I lived in Alexandria, and my father died in the revolt against the Ottoman Empire when I was ten, and that was that. But I don't really see the memories in my head. I just... know that it all happened."

Jonathan scratched his chin, mulling this over.

"No. You should remember things from before you were ten, that's a pretty ripe age."

"I've never thought much about it," Perry admitted. "I assumed that everybody was the same."

Jonathan folded his arms and rocked on his heels in thought.

"What was your father's name?" he asked.

Sadly, she shook her head.

"I don't remember. My mother rarely spoke of him," she sighed. "But _her_ name was Aloli."

Jonathan narrowed his eyes.

"Very odd. Very odd, that..." then, he shrugged and nodded towards the doorway. "But we should get going, before the others send a search party."

Perry got to her feet, also, and made to leave.

"Yes. And perhaps Ardeth will find that information useful. He seems quite insistent that we know each other. I am intrigued by it all, I must say, and he's actually very kind once you get to know him..."

Jonathan spun around before they reached the door, blocking her pathway to the exit.

He gave a little chuckle, as if laughing at a naive child.

"You know, Perry," he began, his false smile showing that he was trying to put something nicely. "Sometimes, men say things just so that pretty little women like yourself will take an interest in them."

She looked up at him and frowned. His mood had just changed entirely. Where was whiny Jonathan with a million relationship problems?

"What are you saying?" she asked.

He gave another one of those chuckles of pretend amusement.

"Well, it only just occurred to me that you are a swell little lass, good for fun and all... and a big, old, sword-wielding tribesman might... Um... Try..."

He trailed off, waving his fingers in circles as if it would make her magically understand his point via the air space between them.

Perry's face dropped.

"To _steal_ me?" she demanded. "Is that the sort of word you were looking for, Mr. Carnahan?"

He let out a sigh, shoulders dropping.

"Perry, I don't mean it like that. I just mean—"

"— That I keep things simple? And another man paying attention to me might make things _less_ simple?" she snapped.

The tension in the storage room had just increased tenfold.

"Perry," he said, quietly. "We've just spent a considerable amount of time discussing how complicated relationships get—"

"Relationships?" she repeated, laughing scornfully. This was absurd. "I'm not in a relationship, Mr. Carnahan!"

"But you _will_ _be_ one day!" Jonathan snapped, suddenly. "Perhaps sooner than I expected."

She fell quiet.

He was just being protective. Clearly, Jonathan was scared, and though he had little reason or right to be this controlling, she understood that he had been forced to deal with a lot this past few days. His mind was a mess.

Deciding she was being too defensive, she gave in and sighed.

"Jonathan—"

But her words were abruptly cut off with a kiss.

It was a desperate act; Jonathan clumsily grabbed her arms and pulled her towards him, lips crashing against hers and making her eyes go wide.

What on earth was he doing?

For a second, Perry didn't move. She didn't breathe, she just stood there, trying to understand what could possibly have compelled him to do this.

It was so unexpected, and everything screamed at her that this was incredibly _wrong_; yet, she took in the fact that his lips were sweet and warm, and that his hold on her was stable, and found her eyes becoming half-lidded.

The kiss became gentler, verging on tentative, but by that time Perry had found herself not all that distressed by it.

Jonathan broke it up.

His blue eyes in hers, Perry just looked at him for a while. Then, she swallowed nervously and spoke.

"What was that for, Mr. Carnahan?" she asked, her whispering voice wavering a little with the surprise.

Jonathan let out a long sigh, and then shook his head, slowly and sadly and tiredly.

"I needed to do that." He said. "If we get out of this mess unscathed, everything's going to change. For Evie, for me, for you. I don't know what's going to happen, but I just think that I should… Leave you with that."

Perry smiled at him, and then reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him into a hug. She found that he smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and a woman's perfume, both scents probably having belonged to Marina.

"You don't have to leave me with anything," she chuckled, patting his back. "Although it was a lovely kiss, Jonathan."

Frowning, he brought her back to look at him.

"Your _first_ kiss, right?"

She blinked.

_No,_ would have been the truthful answer. There was a Nigerian boy she met on the streets, with whom she had been rather smitten as a girl…

"Yes, of course!" she told him, beaming innocently until he joined her in smiling.

Jonathan nodded to himself, looking pleased to a satisfactory degree. Perhaps his muddled mind was settling.

"Right, then, darling. We definitely should get going, now…"

In a gentlemanly manner, he opened the storage room door for her and let her step out first into the corridor.

"One more thing?" she asked, a thought striking her as they headed back to the museum foyer. "How does Marina know so much about curses?"

Jonathan tutted, as if he found the answer silly and worthy of an eye-roll.

"Oh, her family are an odd bunch. They've dealt with all sorts of Africa's mysteries," he sighed. "Gold and lost cities and voodoo and all that. Marina's studied it all. Her grandfather was a rather famous chap."

"Really?" Perry asked. "What was his name?"

"Allan. Allan Quatermain."

**XxXxXx**

Apparently, Jonathan had suggested their regrouping at just the right time, for O'Connell, Evie and Mr. Daniels were now hurriedly following the curator and Ardeth upstairs.

"Yes, well, according to legend, the black book that the Americans found at Hamunaptra is supposed to bring people back from the dead," Evie was saying to Rick.

The archaeologist and his assistant caught up to them as Evelyn discussed the powers of the Book of the Dead and its golden counterpart with O'Connell, and Perry soon decided to slip ahead of them and match Ardeth's pace.

In Arabic, she quietly asked him,

_"Do you think we should tell them that we figured this out before?"_

The Medjai's face remained grave and unmoving, as always, like her presence at his side was that of a ghost.

_"No. This way, we are saved from having to explain it to them."_ he finally replied.

With Jonathan, Rick and Daniels clearly unable to speak her language, the short conversation had felt a quite esoteric, but she didn't have time to enjoy that fact.

The chanting of the creature's name reached everybody's ears, and to their horror, they looked out of the top floor window and found a mob of mindless citizens- covered in incurable boils and sores- heading for their whereabouts.

"They have become his slaves." Ardeth had said, darkly. "So it has begun. The beginning of the end."

_He's so dramatic,_ Perry thought. _If an optimist is the human personification of spring, then Ardeth Bay is the depth of winter._

Evie wasn't easily defeated, however, and she quickly led them all to a large stone plaque at the other end of the museum.

Dr. Bey and she began deciphering the hieroglyphics that aligned the tablet for useful information; Perry could have helped, but fearing that too many cooks would spoil the broth, she stayed out of their way.

Besides: the boil-covered swarm of civilians had begun banging on the museum's entrances, and to call that distracting would have been an understatement.

"According to Bembridge Scholars, the golden book of Amun-Ra is located inside the statue of Anubis..." Evelyn announced to everyone as she read from the plaque.

"That's where we found the black book." Daniels said.

"Exactly."

As Jonathan and Evie discussed the fact that the scholars had gotten the locations of the two books mixed up, Perry and the others grew increasingly worried by the encroaching mob.

The banging and chanting of Imhotep's name grew louder and louder, Jonathan and Rick pleaded with Evie to hurry up, and the librarian remained completely focused until it was almost too late.

"Uh, I think I'll go and get the, ah, car started!" Jonathan stammered, quickly hopping away and sprinting off when he saw that the museum doors had given way to the angry mob.

"Be careful!" Perry shouted after him, saying a little prayer as he fled the scene. She considered following him; it was like watching a dizzy child cross a busy street.

Nose practically pressed to the stone slab, fingers speedily tracing each symbol as she read it, the swarm of mindless civilians under a cloak of fire were pouring inside the building when Evie found her answer.

"I've got it!" she exclaimed. "The Golden Book of Amun-Ra is at Hamunaptra, inside the statue of Horus!"

Proudly, she stepped back from the hieroglyph-covered block, beaming as bright as ever.

"Take that, Bembridge scholars!"

Perry laughed nervously at her blissful ignorance of the danger they were in and ushered her in the direction her brother had ran.

"Okay, Evie, no time to celebrate!"

She didn't know just how Jonathan had gotten to his car without being torn limb from limb, but he had, and he was putting in gear as they all clambered inside.

And another surprise stood at the museum's front doors: Beni Gabor, the Hungarian scoundrel, was watching them.

"_Imhotep!_" he screamed, voice shrill and high.

Perry snapped her head around to look at Beni. He was shouting towards the window where they had all been stood not so long ago.

Jonathan was right: he was allied with the creature.

Up there, almost fully regenerated, stood Imhotep himself, watching them, like a hawk eyeing rats.

He opened his mouth, which was still corpse-rotten, and let out a horrific screaming noise. The shadow he cast on the wall behind him stretched and twisted unnaturally.

But they didn't hang around to watch the work of the devil at play: the car sped off, just as the mob of slaves returned to chase them.

O'Connell was stood up in the passenger seat, yelling at Beni.

"You're gonna get yours, Beni! You're gonna get yours!"

The Hungarian accent was barely audible above the ruckus of the mob, but Perry heard him retort with snarky words.

"Ooh, like I've never heard _that_ before!"

They accelerated down the streets of Cairo, past market stalls and shops other sights that Perry knew well and utilised on a daily basis. It was strange, seeing normal places whilst in utter peril. Nowhere provided sanctuary, nowhere gave them a place to run to or hide.

The car stopped. Jonathan had spotted a blockade of Imhotep's followers up ahead.

They were trapped.

At least, in the eyes of everybody but Rick.

O'Connell took control of the car and stepped on the gas, sending them speeding towards the mob without mercy.

Bodies flew every which way, the car knocking them down like bowling pins. Men smashed into the windshield, but they kept driving.

Evie began screaming.

The insane, boil-covered, zombie-like people realised they could grab onto the vehicle, and started climbing inside and holding onto the doors.

Everybody jumped into action, hurling fists and throwing bodies out of the vehicle. It was an all-out brawl. Caution and any dignities were thrown to the wind in a struggle to keep the passengers in the car and the mummy's slaves out.

Even Evie poked a man in the eyes, which Perry noted was quite something for the proper Englishwoman.

Perry herself threw punches left and right, taking care to assist Terence, who was probably not so disapproving of any 'violence' she could provide at that time.

"O'Connell! _O'Connell!_"

Yelling erupted from the back of the car. Daniels had been grabbed by two men, and was dragged off of the moving vehicle before anybody could come to his aid.

Gunshots were fired as they drove away, undoubtedly by the American's pistols. But then in the distance, theystopped— as did the yelling of the mob, and the sounds of commotion following Daniels.

An inhuman roar— the indescribable noise that Imhotep made before he claimed a life— pierced the air, along with the screams of their former comrade.

The trio of Americans had been completely exterminated.

Perry couldn't focus on the horrible noises of death, though, because their car crashed directly into a large tank of water.

The vehicle wasn't moving again, that was for sure— there was no time to reverse— and the angry mob was still running towards them.

Perry bolted over the side of the vehicle along with everybody else. Ardeth grabbed her wrist and dragged her away from the monstrous crowd, steering her hurriedly in Terence's direction.

The mob chanted Imhotep's name over and over, and they quickly found themselves trapped by the encircling servants of the creature.

Rick held his torch out as a weapon, and the group of survivors quickly bunched up beside one another. The insane civilians did not move any closer, though. They stood, watching with half-dead eyes, and eventually fell quiet.

Perry saw why.

They parted. Imhotep— now a man, not the mummified corpse they had dug up not so long ago— was approaching them.

He was fully regenerated.

Daniels must have made the last contribution.

"It's the creature," said Terence.

His voice was in Perry's ear; she hadn't realised how squashed she was between the two Medjai, but didn't think it appropriate to complain right now.

Imhotep was like a predator, some kind of hungry beast, and she felt as if any movement would cause him to strike.

"...He's fully regenerated."

He walked up, frighteningly close to them. And he was staring at one person in particular. Evelyn Carnahan.

_The fresh body._

He spoke in Ancient Egyptian, a language that Perry didn't need assistance understanding, but Beni Gabor scuttled up behind him and translated the words nonetheless.

He made mistakes, and it took all of Perry's willpower not to smirk and giggle when Evie corrected him and his face dropped.

The ultimatum which Imhotep was proposing soon became clear, however, and it was not a nice one at all.

"Take my hand, and I will spare your friends," Beni translated for the creature. He was, as suspected, referring to Evelyn.

Perry didn't know whether to be thankful she didn't have to make such a decision, or devastated that her friend did.

"Oh dear," Evie breathed. "Have you got any bright ideas?"

O'Connell was still brandishing his torch, but it was probably useless.

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking..."

"You better think of something fast, because if he turns me into a mummy, you're the first one I'm coming after." she whispered to him.

And with that, Evelyn Canahan made her decision and stepped towards Imhotep.

Perry's heart sank.

"Evie?" she questioned in panic. Jonathan and she exchanged a horrified glance.

Rick was in shock.

"No!"

He pulled out his pistol.

"Don't!" Evie pleaded. "He still has to take me to Hamunaptra to perform the ritual."

Ardeth reached over and restrained O'Connell's arm, stopping him from firing.

"She is right," he told Rick. "Live today, fight tomorrow."

Imhotep glared evilly at O'Connell. The fact that Evelyn was standing snugly at his side made everything a lot worse. Perry couldn't imagine how Rick must have felt at this moment.

Reluctantly, O'Connell put his gun back in its holster.

Evelyn and he shared a look, then: it was the saddest Perry had ever seen Evie appear. She was making a sacrifice, because— as was completely apparent now— she was in love with Richard O'Connell.

Rick took a moment to deliver Imhotep a last, venomous message.

"I'll be seeing you again."

The creature just smirked, and led poor Evie away into the mob.

"Evelyn!" Rick cried, but Ardeth held him back as he struggled.

"Hey, that's mine!" Perry heard Jonathan cry. Looking over, she saw that Beni had snatched the puzzlebox off of him.

"Thank you," Gabor said. Surely, Jonathan was going insane with hatred.

As he made to leave, Beni stopped and grinned at Perry. He flashed his smirking grin; everything from his fez hat to his dirty shoes seemed to suddenly gloat.

"And you, my good lady... _Ruuh fi sittiin alf dahya._"

He had just repeated the words Perry had snarled at him before their camel race to Hamunaptra: Go to sixty thousand hells.

Terence placed a hand on Perry's shoulder, warning her not to entertain the sly man with any rash moves. Beni obviously took great pleasure in the fact that she couldn't retaliate to his slyness, but she didn't have long to dwell on his insults.

"Kill them all!" Imhotep shouted to his slaves.

Perry panicked. This wasn't what Evie had agreed to.

"No! Let go of me!" the Englishwoman cried, realising that she had been tricked. "Let go of me!"

The mob began to groan and approach them once more.

"Goodbye, my friend!" Beni said to Rick, who Ardeth stopped restraining.

"Come here, you little—" but Beni scuttled after Imhotep before his 'friend' could get a hold of him.

The creature, Evie and the Hungarian had disappeared, now, and only boil and sore-covered faces remained.

Rick tossed his torch at them, but it did nothing. Instead, he thought fast, and removed the metal cover of a drain by their feet.

"Come on!" he said to Jonathan.

"What about my sister?" Jonathan asked him, hesitating before dropping into the sewer tunnels below.

"We're gonna get her back! Go!"

He pushed Jonathan down into the drain, and he disappeared from view, plummeting into the darkness below the Cairo streets.

Not too enticed by the idea of enclosed, dark, underground spaces, Perry lingered uneasily beside Ardeth. But O'Connell was having none of her silliness.

"Come on, Perry!" he shouted, grabbing her wrist.

"Wait! Wh—" and then she was falling.

"Ouch!" Jonathan broke her fall. For a thin man, he was a surprisingly good cushion.

They squinted up at the opening of the drain.

Above them, the sounds of swords slashing had arisen.

For a moment, Perry thought that Ardeth might have decided to stay behind and fight, and anxiety swept her chest.

But then she heard Rick say, "You next!", and Ardeth had fallen to their side.

By the time she and Jonathan had helped the Medjai to his feet, Rick dropped down, too. That made four of them.

"Wait, where's Dr. Bey?" Perry asked.

From the surface, screams erupted.

Dr. Bey, it seemed, was dead.


	21. Chapter 21

**a/n: Okay, so I didn't know whether to merge this chapter with the next or not, and to be honest I found fitting an OC into the 'plane ride to Hamunaptra' scene weird. But I did my best.**

**Oh, and also (as **_**Brunette**_** kindly pointed out) Beni was speaking Hebrew in the last chapter, not Ancient Egyptian. Duh. I made a mistake, please ignore it. Gracias.**

**CHAPTER 21**

"Morning, Winston! Uh, a word?"

When Rick and Jonathan told Perry and Ardeth that they would be seeking the help of a Mr. Winston Havelock, celebrated war hero and member of His Majesty's Royal Air Force, Perry had expected they be faced with a ruggedly handsome, well-aged gentleman with all the traits of a heroic medal-wearer.

Upon meeting Winston, she took a mental note to lower her expectations from now on.

A heavyset old man with a grey walrus moustache and green officer's cap was whom they came to face in a sorry excuse for an airfield, and Perry could have sworn he was drunk.

"So what's your little problem got to do with His Majesty's Royal Air Corps?" the old pilot asked Rick and Jonathan.

O'Connell aroused Winston's attention by telling him that he probably wouldn't live through it— a psychological route that Perry didn't quite understand, but one that seemed to work.

"Everybody else we've bumped into has died— why not you?" Jonathan told the man, causing Perry to roll her eyes.

She was stood beside Ardeth, eyeing the gramophone beside Winston with a vengeance. The tinny music reminded her of Myrtle, an English woman who Jonathan had dated a few years ago.

Myrtle would play music by Paul Whiteman and dance the Charleston— or whatever that ridiculous toe-tapping, leg twisting jive was called— all day, something that had aggravated Perry greatly.

Flailing her limbs around like that, Myrtle had looked so gangly and silly. And the gramophone _never stopped playing_.

But Winston's music did no harm. She was just in a bad mood today. The tangled, dark locks of her hair were freely blowing all over the place in the wind, only further reminding her that her hijab had been torn by Imhotep's slaves, and her al-Amira discarded during their journey out of Cairo's underground.

Neither Ardeth nor the other men seemed to mind, but the loss of her best hijab just made her feel out of sorts.

Although, Daniels, Henderson, Burns and Dr. Bey had lost their _lives_, and now Jonathan and Rick had lost _Evie_...

So that sort of put things into perspective and made her stop sulking.

"Let's see, uh, what's the challenge then?" plump, moustached Winston asked Rick, getting to his feet.

"Rescue the damsel in distress. Kill the bad guy. Save the world." he replied.

Perry scoffed. The men around glanced at her.

"You make it sound like a fairytale, Mr. O'Connell," she droned. "Funny, I don't remember reading any fairytales with mummies and plagues and people dying at every turn..."

Normally, she wouldn't have spoken to Rick- or anybody, for that matter- in such a rude manner, but with near-death-experiences around every corner, her upkeep of modesty seemed largely unimportant.

Jonathan snickered at her remark, but it was overtaken by Winston's loud laugh.

"Ah, ha ha ha ha! Winston Havelock, at your service, sir! Ha ha!"

He saluted Rick, apparently confirming his allegiance with them.

Perry cleared her throat, and spoke just low enough so that Jonathan and Ardeth could hear her.

"Uh, what exactly do his services... Consist of?"

Much to her great dismay, she soon found out.

**XxXxXx**

Winston's plane— a rickety old fighter from the Great War— made so much noise, Perry was certain she wouldn't hear their inevitable fiery deaths over her newfound deafness.

As if their situation couldn't have been worse, it turned out that there was room for only the pilot and a gunman in the plane's body.

Ardeth, Jonathan and she were forced to resort to... _extreme_ measures for transportation.

"I'm not getting on a wing," she had told O'Connell before they took off.

Rick had looked between she and the plane with little care before slapping a set of aviator's goggles into her hands.

"Choose who you're flying with, Perry."

And he had trudged away.

Jonathan had been lying on his wing, watching Winston uneasily as he strapped him down. Ardeth was sat on the other, not yet tied down and fiddling with the cap he had been given.

"So, are you getting on here with me, or what?" Jonathan had asked her.

She had looked from Jonathan— thin, clumsy Jonathan— to Ardeth— the big, strong swordsman— and bit her lip. Were her harness to break loose, one man would certainly be better at keeping her from death than the other.

"Umm... I might go with Ardeth." she had said.

Ardeth looked up at the mention of his name, and gave her a nod. Jonathan, however, had been less than pleased.

"Why him?" he'd shrieked. "You know what, fine. Go with him, then. Bloody woman..."

She had dismissed his angry mumbling and allowed Ardeth to help her up onto his wing.

"Well, I'm not sure this is the smartest thing I've ever participated in," she mumbled, reluctantly putting her aviator's goggles on.

They were huge, and covered most of her face. When Ardeth turned to say something to her, he stopped and smiled in amusement at how comical she looked.

Perry hadn't seen him smile up until now.

If it was possible, the fact that any displays of Ardeth's humanity were few and far between made his smile seem even nicer.

"What's so funny?" she'd asked.

He had paused, as if to find the right word, and then said,

"...You look like a jerboa."

And so Perry had ended up on Ardeth's wing, with big jerboa eyes and the inability to share his joy in their first experience of flight.

If Ardeth's smiles had been rare before, they weren't now: he was having a fantastic time as they soared through the air, grinning widely as the plane looped and twirled above the sands below.

Perry wasn't doing as well. She had never ridden in an aeroplane before, or a blimp, or a hot air balloon, or any of the other mechanical flying devices Jonathan had described to her.

She never intended to fly in the others, and she certainly didn't want to hitch a ride on this particular plane ever again.

Things only grew worse when she heard Winston and O'Connell having a worried conversation centred around a massive funnel of sand that was swivelling across the desert plains.

"Do you think there's something odd about that thing?" she shouted to Ardeth, who just stared at it with suspicion.

Much to their surprise, the twister of sand died down and disappeared entirely as they flew further.

_I guess this might not end in disaster after all,_ she thought.

"Oh my God..." Rick's voice said.

There was a massive billowing noise, and a snapping, cracking sound, like the earth being ripped in two. To their horror, the funnel was replaced by a gigantic wall of sand that rose up from the desert floor like it had just been shoved out of Hell.

_I guess I spoke too soon. This will definitely end in disaster._

O'Connell began yelling at Winston to peddle faster.

The wall was heading straight for them. Their little plane was going to be wiped out.

"Hang on, men!" the pilot shouted.

This was _not_ how Perry had imagined her first plane ride to be.

She let out a blood-curdling scream, certain that death awaited, as the jet took a nose-dive over the edge of a cliff.

From behind the canyon, the massive storm swept up and followed them, crashing onto the earth and making the world quake as it tried to swallow their tiny jet.

Rick started firing the machine gun, although Perry didn't understand what good that would do. Yes, this was clearly the work of Imhotep... But he was shooting at sand, and sand didn't care about bullets.

Or, as she found, it did. The sand wall— now with the creature's face protruding from it's core— became angry at Rick's retaliation, and lurched forward, open-mouthed, to eat the plane.

The jet was swept up in the sand. It spun around and around; everybody was yelling, holding on for dear life. Jonathan was screaming the loudest. Perry wanted to tell him to shut up, but was forced to keep her mouth shut or get a lung full of sand.

"Here I come, laddies!" Winston yelled. He sounded ecstatic about his own doom, chuckling madly as the plane flipped upside down.

Just as Pyrrah said her goodbyes to the cruel world, the sand disappeared entirely. Everything fell quiet, spare the racket of the engine. The plane flipped to an upright position. Jonathan stopped screaming.

But then the smell of smoke filled the air, and flames started crackling nearby.

The plane began to drop.

All Perry could do was shut her eyes as it plummeted and crashed into a sand dune.

Something exploded. There was the unmistakable clang of metal hitting metal, and then pain as metal hit skull. The air smelled of smoke. She could hear coughing, but see nothing.

"Owww..." she moaned.

Fingers finding the strap of her now broken aviator's goggles, she tugged until her eyes were uncovered. Initially, the sunlight hurt, but then the yellow sand and blue sky and black smoke all shifted into place.

There was something heavy on her back, and only when she felt movement did she realise it was another body. Ardeth rolled away from her, and she felt him kicking as he stood to regain his balance.

Deciding she should join him and assess the damage— perhaps check that Jonathan wasn't completely dead— Perry shot to her feet.

However, the action was premature: her legs went limp as the blood was drained from her head, and the desert became a multitude of kaleidoscopic colours whilst she found herself fainting.

She landed with a thud.

Strong hands grasped her arms and lifted her to her feet again. Ardeth was unbalanced too, which made it a rather tricky feat, but eventually she found herself supported in his arms.

Usually, it was Evelyn who ended up in the heroic embrace of a strong man after some sort of calamity, but it seemed the tables had turned drastically.

Not that Perry _minded_, of course.

O'Connell climbed out of the wreckage just beside them.

Perry gazed up at Ardeth, although her vision was distorted with the last traces of bright colours and starry spots.

"Thank you," she breathed.

He looked down at the small woman he held securely, and nodded. They were so close that she could feel the rise and fall of his chest against her hands.

The moment, though— like any interesting moment in Perry's life— was interrupted by a familiar, attention-seeking English voice.

"Excuse me," Jonathan called. "A little help would be useful, if it's NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE!"

She grit her teeth, took a calming breath, and snapped, "I'm _coming_!"

A little reluctantly, Ardeth let his arms fall from around her, and she did her best not to stumble as she climbed off the wing and stormed in the direction of Jonathan's tantrum.

"Oh, Mr. Carnahan, you'll be alright..."

Soon enough, her employer was on his own two feet and she was dusting sand off his jacket. But more bad news joined the picture when O'Connell shouted their pilot's name in panic.

"Winston!"

Perry dashed over to the remains of the cockpit. Slouched in his seat, still as a statue, was Winston Havelock, the barmy RAF soldier.

A smile was fixed beneath his moustache, but it was certainly not brought about by his unseeing eyes.

Rick checked his pulse, and then looked back at she and Jonathan with sorrow. Old Winston Havelock had run his course.

Mourning would wait, however, because the wreckage of the plane suddenly jolted.

O'Connell stumbled away from Winston's corpse, pushing back Perry and Jonathan as he fled the plane's body. "Get back, it's quicksand!"

Perry felt herself being yanked to safe ground by Ardeth, who had apparently grown accustomed to pulling her away from danger by her wrists.

The Medjai seemed to have salvaged the machine gun from the wreckage, she noticed; a change from swords and scimitars and traditional weapons, she quickly decided that it suited him.

The plane— or rather, it's massacred bits and pieces— sunk into the sandy floor. Watching with solemnity, Rick saluted brave Winston one last time before leading them off into the desert again.


	22. Chapter 22

**The "chapter of revelations" has arrived, people.**

**I desperately hope you enjoy it…**

**CHAPTER 22**

The final trek to Hamunaptra was underway.

The desert heat tried its hardest to slow them down, but the four of them were resilient in their quest.

Whether it was a damsel in distress, cold-blooded revenge, the safety of millions or just survival in mind, everybody had a goal to keep them trudging through that sand.

Determination didn't rob them of all conversation, however, and Perry found this time a good opportunity to talk to Ardeth.

Jonathan, who would have otherwise been hogging her attention for the sake of keeping it to himself, was distracted by numerous factors for the time being— namely, O'Connell, the Sun, and any deathstalker scorpions he might have encountered.

And so, she was free to talk.

"... And so, you see, Gatsby is nervous about meeting her again after all these years," she was saying to Ardeth.

The Medjai was frowning at the sand as they walked, listening to the story she told with intrigue but only vague understanding.

"And how does this story end?" he asked her.

Perry shrugged, and brushed her windswept hair out of her eyes.

"I don't know. My book sunk with our barge."

Ardeth raised a thumb and thoughtfully scratched his beard. His face was concentrated, to a degree that forced the woman at his side to suppress a smile. She had interested a warrior in literature.

"It can only end badly." he decided, shaking his head.

Perry gasped at his conclusion.

"No! It has to have a happy ending!" she told him, frantically asserting her beliefs. "Why would this Fitzgerald man tell this entire story, only to have it end unhappily?"

Ardeth gazed off at the horizon, his stare full of distant intensity but followed by no answer.

Perry took this as a signal that the 'Great Gatsby' subject was getting worn out.

"Anyway," she sighed. "It's a good story."

She hadn't expected him to say anything after that, but apparently that far-off look had been the front to some thoughts.

"I have a story to tell you." he said. "If you wish to hear it."

Surprised, she looked up at him.

With his black robes and tribal tattoos and massive machine gun, he would have looked incredibly menacing to a stranger. Yet here he was, offering to act as a storyteller.

She nodded.

"Absolutely."

Face grave as always, he kept his eyes far away, watching the dunes and cliffs of the Sahara whilst he began the tale.

"When I was a boy, my family's tribe was lead by a great and powerful Medjai warrior. His name was Dossari Al-Ahmed," he began. "King of the Sands, the mightiest chieftain the twelve tribes had seen in a hundred years."

_Twelve tribes?_ Perry thought. _How many Medjai are there?_

"Dossari had four wives and twelve children," Ardeth went on. "But his youngest bride is the one who we _remember_."

Perry raised an eyebrow.

"You say that like she is infamous."

Ardeth grimaced at the shimmering horizon.

"Infamous, indeed. After the murder of her father— another great chieftain— she became embittered with our people's way of life. It was only for the sake of her husband that she tolerated us."

"Did you know the family well?" Perry asked him.

The hint of a smile crossed his lips, but he covered it up by squinting awkwardly at the sunlight. He nodded.

"Yes. Dossari's youngest four children were inseparable from my own siblings," he told her. "They were treated as family."

Perry smiled at him, but he wasn't looking at her. Whereas his speaking of this family seemed happy, his expression was quite sad.

"The three boys, Isiah, Nadim and Shaqir, were older than myself," he continued. "Their sister was younger. But it was she who I held closest to my own heart."

From the way he spoke so grimly, Perry could only assume that this girl's story did not have a happy ending.

She looked ahead at Jonathan and Rick. They were chatting idly, each swaying a little in the heat from time to time. Neither could hear them, nor care what they were saying.

"She and I were the best of friends," Ardeth said, his smile faintly reappearing. "We caused trouble around the encampment, and raced cattle, and played in the oases for days on end. We made up stories about the gods, and named the stars... We painted our faces like warriors and fought with our fathers' swords."

The thought of an innocent, pint-sized version of the Ardeth Bay she knew now, one without a care in the world, brought a grin to her face. She let out a little laugh.

"What I would give to see you have such fun..." she chuckled, shaking her head.

Ardeth looked across at her.

"I remember those years as the happiest of my life," he said. "Before I was sworn to an oath to protect this world from the evils my ancestors hid."

A question now pressed her. Hesitantly, she asked it, deciding that he was bound to tell her one way or the other.

"What happened to her?" she asked. "What happened to Dossari's family?"

As if he had been expecting the inquiry, he went straight into the answer, which was clearly the next part of his story anyway.

"There was a Nubian tribe that sought to wake Imhotep from his slumber," he said, words immediately laced with hatred. "Enemies of the Medjai for generations. Out of fear, the tribe fell quiet during Dossari's reign. It was in this time, however, that they plotted the downfall of the Medjai."

Perry watched him speak, reminding herself that this story was true. His voice was dark with all the distaste of a lifelong grudge.

"They posed as travellers seeking hospitality, and were welcomed in by our tribe. When night fell, they slaughtered Dossari in his sleep."

"That's awful," she whispered.

"They killed three of his wives, and then murdered four of his sons and two of his daughters. The massacre that followed was..." he stopped, and shut his eyes in anguish. "Horrible."

She couldn't believe that this actually happened, that Ardeth had been witness to this as a child.

Perry swallowed nervously. She wanted desperately to say something, say anything to make that look of despair leave him. But her thoughts couldn't make it into words.

"My family and I were lucky enough to escape with our lives, but in the commotion the tribe was divided. Dossari's fourth wife had survived the ambush, and with her children she fled," he went on. "They took shelter in the Djarr caves of the Farafrah Oasis. But the barbarians would surely not let the brood of Al-Ahmed survive the siege."

Truly invested in his story, Perry found herself now subjected to a deal of distress. Emotion hurt her throat, and she felt sorrow as if she had been there herself. Confused as to why she was so dramatically empathetic all of a sudden, she decided to ask another question and root for some hope.

"Wh—"

"Look! There it is! Finally, we can see the bloody place, I was beginning to think it'd disappeared, O'Connell!"

Jonathan's relieved voice distracted both of the Egyptians, who looked from their respective points of gaze to the horizon. Sure enough, the City of the Dead lay there, close enough for them to reach in a short time.

Hamunaptra was funny that way: you didn't know how close to it you were until it materialised before your eyes.

Perry sighed. Rick had stopped to eye the glimmering walls of the ancient city, but now resumed their journey. She was anxious to know how Ardeth's story would end, and so turned to him in desperation.

Seeing the look on her face, he lowered his voice and continued.

"The Medjai went to war, and the Nubian tribe were eventually vanquished. I spent months hoping— praying— for the safety of Dossari's surviving children," he said. "It wasn't until after the battles had ceased that we found that the Djarr caves had collapsed inwards on themselves."

"They died?" Perry whispered.

Ardeth let out a breath.

"Isiah, Nadim and Shaqir were found alongside the barbarians, crushed beneath the rock and stalactites," he said. "But the bodies of the last bride and her daughter were never recovered."

Perry's hands were shaking. She didn't know why.

"I refused accept the idea that they had perished," Ardeth told her. "I was insistent that they were still alive, somewhere, and I tried endlessly to convince my tribe of the same. But months turned into years, and my hope began to lessen."

She opened her mouth to speak, but the need to cry threatened to break her voice. Why was she so moved by this? She took a deep, shaky breath, and told herself to calm down.

_You have no reason to cry, _she thought_._ _It's his story._ _It shouldn't matter to you._

"I grew to believe they had died," he admitted. "But recent events have… changed my mind. Before his death, Terence and I reached a new conclusion."

Their trek to Hamunaptra was drawing to an end. In a minute, they would be within the city's walls.

"And what is that conclusion?" Perry asked him. Her voice was barely audible over the desert wind.

Ardeth, never forgetting his position as a warrior, scoped out the city perimeter with eyes that didn't quite hide old feelings of dolour.

"I believe," he said, adjusting the machine gun on his shoulder, "that Dossari's fourth wife survived the cave-in. I believe she saw an opportunity to finally escape the Medjai life, and took her last surviving child to the city, where she changed the girl's name from Al-Dossari and gave her a new identity."

Perry shook her head at the ground. What she was shaking her head at, she didn't know; tears had slipped from her eyes, though she didn't know why, and a surge of grief passed through her.

She didn't want to feel this strange heartache. Blink her tears away as she did, she could sense the simplicity Jonathan had mentioned slipping away as she asked her next question.

But she knew she must ask it, as Ardeth had known he must tell this story.

"What were the names of the bride and the daughter?" she asked.

Hamunaptra was here. Soon, Rick and Jonathan would be working out a way to save Evie, and then her chance to know would disappear, maybe forever.

Ardeth gazed at her— with those dark eyes that had seemed inexplicably familiar when she first saw them— and answered.

The answer he gave suggested that his heartbreak of many years had been cured in the unlikely form of an archaeologist's assistant.

"The fourth wife's name was Aloli, daughter of Chief Ananka," he told her. "And her daughter's name was Pyrrah."


	23. Chapter 23

**CHAPTER 23**

Sunlight seemed to merge into shade as quickly as tears had faded to hollowness, and somewhere between it all, people began moving stones.

"Why are you crying, Perry?" Jonathan had asked her, turning to her with concern as they entered Hamunaptra's labyrinth.

Not having intended to let him see her cry, she hastily wiped the tears from her face in embarrassment.

"No reason," she sniffed. "I just... Um... Realised something."

He looked skeptical about her queer explanation, but she faked a smile to put his mind at ease.

Eventually, he hummed.

"Well, if it was something to do with that fellow over there," he muttered, nodding to Ardeth, "I'll be teaching him a lesson or two in the near future."

Perry had to resist the temptation to ask Jonathan what sort of 'lesson' he had in mind, as the thought of him attempting to intimidate Ardeth Bay was equally ridiculous and hilarious. As much as she loved Jonathan, she knew he was no match for the Medjai in any sense of competition or confrontation.

"That's not necessary, thank you, Mr. Carnahan."

Truthfully, she could have used Jonathan's ear right about then. She could have used anybody's ear, as long as she had _somebody_ to talk to.

Ardeth was in ever-efficient 'Medjai-mode', and it clearly wasn't the time to further their conversation, although she desperately wanted to speak with him. She had a million questions. Her mind was full to the brim with answers that needed explaining and explanations that needed questioning, and it was polluting the clarity of everything.

Straight thinking could not happen right now, and since they were within the walls of a cursed city— trying to save Evelyn before a three-thousand-year-old mummy sacrificed her to resurrect his lover and take over the world, no less— it wasn't the best of times to be distracted.

But how could she _not_ be distracted?

Her entire life had just been turned upside down.

Apparently, her father had not died in the pan-Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire at all. She hadn't be born in Alexandria; she had brothers and sisters who had died, an entire life her mother had covered up.

Her surname wasn't even Ananka.

As she followed the men into the dark chambers, Jonathan's torch in hand, she had mulled over just how much of her life had been a lie. It made her feel scared; she didn't even know who she was, and if she didn't know who she was, how could she possibly be expected to deal with the rest of the world?

And Ardeth.

As much as everything terribly confused her— to a degree that she felt slightly mentally unstable— he had brought about a new sort of sense to everything.

With all the speak of resurrections and ancient spells and past lives, the fact that she had recognised him so strongly had made her consider things against her faith to find an answer. But now things were making sense, adding up correctly for the first time.

If what he said was true— and she didn't doubt his word for a second— then she had had an entire life with him, a happy childhood and a family. Those were things she'd never known since her mother died, and it was comforting to learn of such a peaceful era in her lifetime.

Even so, poor young Ardeth had ended up heartbroken, devastated by her supposed death, and somehow she had lost all of her memory.

_What's the word for that?_ she thought. _Amnesia? Yes, amnesia._

A decade had simply fallen out of her head.

She felt her mother, too, was responsible for the pure shock of all this. The illness that had eventually taken the woman's life had lingered in her body for a long time, and she had foreseen her demise far before it arrived. Yet, in one last act of stubbornness, she had deprived her only surviving child of information that could have kept her off the streets.

Pyrrah had a family, a tribe that she had once belonged to. Ardeth's tribe. Rather than steal and cheat and fight her way from Alexandria to Cairo in search of better survival conditions, she could have tracked them down and become reunited with people that would have taken her in and cared for her.

In an attempt to shun bitterness, she told herself that Allah had simply planned for her to meet Jonathan Carnahan all along; but still she found herself longing, aching, to get back those beautiful years that had slipped away from her.

Life had stolen the most precious things from her, including the boy that was once her best friend.

"_Hal anta bikhair?_"

The sprawl of thoughts that clouded her mind was interrupted by Ardeth's voice. She blinked up at him.

He and Rick had figured out that the best route to take to get through Hamunaptra was currently blocked up by a pile of rocks, and the two of them were working hard to clear the path.

Perry had been too absent-minded to offer her help, and Jonathan seemed to be overseeing their work like a power-pissed pit boss.

She nodded at the Medjai.

"Yes."

He glanced at Rick to make sure he wasn't bothered by his momentary work break, and then back at her. Jonathan was watching him, so he spoke in Arabic.

"_We will talk later. Do not worry yourself_."

And then he went back to moving stones.

Perry sighed and let her head rest against the wall behind her. The flames of Jonathan's torch faintly lit up the dusty walls, and she began to count cobwebs to keep any complicated thoughts at bay.

"Take the bigger stones first," Jonathan was now instructing Rick and Ardeth. "Take them from the top, otherwise the whole thing'll cave in on us! Come on, put your backs into it!"

The two men paused their rock-lugging for a moment to glare at the Brit, something which Perry gladly participated in. Jonathan, suddenly not so high and mighty, chuckled nervously to hide his intimidation.

"You've got the idea. Chop-chop."

Perry rolled her eyes at him, and then looked back to her cobwebs.

"Jonathan, I hope you step on a Brazilian wandering spider." she mumbled.

Her employer, who apparently had the attention-span of a goldfish, seemed to have taken an interest in something else.

"What does that, err, spider do, exactly?" he asked.

She smirked to herself, but didn't tell him the answer.

Shutting her eyes for a moment, she was vaguely aware of him picking at something on the wall he was examining.

"I say," he muttered. "Gents, you should come and have a look at this..."

Like the two 'gents', she ignored him.

Until he started screaming.

Everybody spun around to stare at him.

"What?!" O'Connell demanded.

Jonathan was holding his arm out before him and rolling his shirt sleeve up in panic. His arm was straight and rigid, and he was clawing at his clothing as if some sort of disease was spreading beneath it.

They all rushed over to his side.

"It's in my arm! It's in my arm!" he began shrieking.

Rick grabbed his shirt collar and ripped it open, exposing Jonathan's bare shoulder.

Perry gasped. A massive lump was moving around under his skin, crawling within his flesh.

"Woah!" Rick shouted.

"My goodness, what is that?!" Perry yelped, dropping the torch she was holding. Its flames extinguished on the ground.

The lump was working its way towards Jonathan's neck.

She nearly balked when she saw how smoothly it glided beneath his skin. Whatever it was, it was travelling very quickly and with determination.

"Hold him!" Rick ordered.

Ardeth grasped Jonathan's side and steadied him. Wanting to assist, Perry darted around to his front and did her best to keep him from squirming.

"Do something! Do something!" Jonathan begged. There was a 'snikt' as Rick whipped out his pocket knife. "Not that! Not that!"

Perry's heart was thumping in her ears, her eyes wide with shock. She had not the foggiest idea how the man had gotten himself into this predicament in only a matter of seconds, but he looked to be in absolute agony. Was he going to die?

Luckily, her question was quickly answered.

From where she was standing, she got a first class view of Rick's blade slicing into Jonathan's pale skin.

He cried out in pain. The scarab beetle— for that was what it turned out to be— was flung from his body, catapulting across the room. It turned around and eyed the meaty humans.

Ardeth pushed Jonathan behind him, and there he cowered as the beetle scuttled towards them, looking for its next target.

An expertly-aimed bullet, courtesy of Mr. Richard O'Connell, killed it.

The echoing of the gunshot took a while to cease.

"Are you alright, Jonathan?" Perry whispered, once things went quiet again.

He nodded, panting heavily, clearly traumatised by the incident.

She prodded Rick on the shoulder, pestering him until he found her a piece of cloth with which to treat Jonathan's wounds.

She mopped up the blood on his shoulder whilst Ardeth and O'Connell went back to unblocking the passageway.

"Your eyes are bigger than your brain, Mr. Carnahan..." she muttered.

The incision was deep, and the flesh beneath it gnarled. It appeared as if the beetle had dug its strong little legs right into his muscle to resist the ejection by Rick's knife.

"Well, you know what they say," he sad. "Money doesn't grow on trees. I was just hoping it grew in beetle shells..."

The knife wound clotted and the bleeding stopped, so she brought his wrist into the light. There was a nasty, bruising lump where the scarab had burrowed into his arm.

"You know what else they say," she retorted. "Money is the root of all evil."

Jonathan rolled his eyes.

That philosophy certainly wasn't one he lived by.

"Why must you be so wisdom-filled, darling?"

She sighed, and wrapped the cloth around his wrist in a makeshift bandage. Gently, so as not to hurt him, she wound it into a knot.

"Because I learn my lessons. And have you learned a lesson, just now?"

She tied it. He flinched.

"Yes," he mumbled. "I don't like scarab beetles."

**XxXxXx**

"Great. The smallest passage in the world." Perry droned.

Not a stone remained at the entrance to the route they would be taking, and yet the gap in the wall was so small, they might as well have not bothered clearing them away in the first place. The fit was still going to be extremely tight.

"Let's get moving," O'Connell said.

Picking up his torch and gunny sack, he slid effortlessly inside the parting in the stone.

Perry was next in line to go through.

Eyeing the sliver of darkness cut into the wall, she scoffed and defensively folded her arms.

"I'm not going in there!" she laughed.

Rick stuck his head out of the crevice and gave her a blank look, like he was tired of pointing out something obvious. In sarcastic jest, he frowned to himself, and thoughtfully narrowed his eyes at the ceiling.

"Hmm, you know, it's funny, Perry, 'cause you said you _wouldn't_ stay at the camp, you _wouldn't_ ride on Winston's plane, and you _wouldn't_ get involved with our mistakes... But here you are."

She glared at him. O'Connell seemed all too good at observing bad habits without letting you realise he was observing them.

"What are you saying?" she asked, quietly, although she knew precisely what he was saying.

Rick shuffled further into the tunnel, answering her just before he disappeared into darkness.

"Get in the passage, Perry."

She huffed, and then realised that Ardeth was waiting for her to move on before him.

He was just watching her, inspecting her frustration with keen eyes.

"You're claustrophobic." he eventually said.

She nodded. He had questioned her uneasiness in Hamunaptra the night the creature had been awoken.

After meeting his gaze for a moment, a thought occurred to her. Surprise hit her when she realised that she hadn't drawn this conclusion until now.

"The fear of being crushed or trapped has terrified me for years," she stated, annoyed for the moment with life's little revelations. "One would think I had experienced something traumatic like—"

"— A cave-in."

He finished her sentence grimly. Eyes flitting over him to the passage, she clicked her teeth at the sight of the hole in the wall.

For a second, she wondered what the Djarr caves were like. How deep they were, how dark they were... What she had looked like when she was dragged out of all that debris.

"Well, I suppose I'll have to get over it for the time being." she grumbled.

Ardeth stepped in front of her and into the passage, where he paused and held out his arm.

The Medjai's fingers hovered in the space between them. He was offering her his hand.

She smiled.

"For God's sake, will you two get a move on?" Jonathan scowled, from behind her. She had forgotten he was even there.

Happily, she took Ardeth's hand; her own hand, small and delicate, felt ridiculously tiny wrapped in his calloused fingers, the strong bones of a swordsman.

"Jesus Christ, we're here to save my sister, not dilly-dally and hold hands and all this rubbish…"

Despite Rick's torchlight, it was so dark within the passage that Perry could hardly tell if Jonathan was even following them. The walls on either side of them seemed to be closing in, growing narrower and tighter, threatening to trap and suffocate anybody foolish enough to cut through the core of the City of the Dead.

Whenever she tensed in fear, however, Ardeth reassuringly tightened his grip on her hand. And the fact that a hardened Medjai chieftain had a soft spot for her was enough to make her grin in the darkness.

O'Connell tossed his torch and gunny sack out of the passage first, and then hopped down into the room beyond. Ardeth dropped down after him, and then turned to Perry.

"_Shukran_," she whispered to him, blushing a little as he lifted her from the ledge and lowered her to the ground.

The hint of a smile started on his face, but then he dropped it in favour of seriousness when Rick's presence became evident once more.

He readjusted the machine gun that hung around his torso and turned to follow the American.

Looking around this new room— most of which was shrouded by darkness— it seemed empty.

Apart from a single beam of sunlight, trapped in the surface of a mirror.

Perry, standing small at Rick's side, raised a finger and tapped him on the shoulder.

"There," she whispered, pointing to the mirror. "It's like Evie showed us."

Understanding what she meant, O'Connell raised his gun and fired a bullet. There was a clang— it hit the mirror and sent it spinning wildly, causing a burst of light to flood the room.

Before the eyes of Jonathan, Rick, Perry and Ardeth, all of Hamunaptra's treasures were illuminated.

A room of brilliant gold lay before them, stretching off in every direction.

Perry gasped. She was too stunned to even look at Jonathan's reaction, although she was certain he would be having a heart attack from sheer ecstasy.

"How many troy ounces do you think all this weighs, Mr. Carnahan?" she whispered, her dark eyes alight with the glimmer of the gold.

This was what they had been talking about, ever since Evie had first mentioned Hamunaptra in Terence Bey's office, since Jonathan had drunkenly calculated the fortune they could claim that night on the barge.

The four of them stepped forward, descending the set of stairs that led down to the treasures.

Massive statues of pharaohs, sculptures of kings and queens, chariot wheels, sphinxes, guards and ornate walls of hieroglyphs lay all around: all beautiful, all magnificent, and all made entirely of gold.

"Can you see..." Jonathan whispered.

"Yeah." Rick said.

"Can you believe..."

"Yeah."

"Can we just..."

"No."

It was a breathtaking sight... And one that turned out to be too good to be true.

A sound behind them made everyone jump and turn in its direction. Rick and Ardeth held their respective weapons at the ready.

A hand— two hands, three hands— shot out of the ground. Grey skin draped with bandages came into view, as the limbs of mummies began to rise from the sand.

"Who the hell are these guys?" Rick asked.

"Priests," Ardeth answered. "Imhotep's priests."

The priests' deformed heads and ribcages and rotted bodies climbed up from their sandy graves surprisingly quickly. Perry wondered how easy— or difficult— they would be to destroy.

"All right, then." Rick said.

And then he and Ardeth began to fire.

When Jonathan had first hired Perry, she hadn't known how to read English at all.

Nowadays, she could enjoy literature from writers of the western world such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Jules Verne, Mark Twain and, recently, that Fitzgerald fellow.

But it hadn't always been like that. When Jonathan had first been teaching her to read, he had given her a series of cheap paperbacks entitled 'Beadle's Dime Novels' with which to practice understanding the language and alphabet.

The stories in the Beadles' collection had consisted majorly of tales about Texan gunmen, law-breakers and lone rangers, cowboys and Indians and lots of shootouts.

They were all fantastical, and Perry had spent a long time wondering if life in America was actually like that.

Right now, in the Hamunaptra treasure room, she realised just how similar her own situation was to the made-up scenarios in the dime novels.

A trio of gun-wielding men were shooting at the imminent threat of evil monsters, all three of them interesting characters in their own right.

O'Connell, she decided, was the leader. The American hero, out to get his girl, beat the bad guy and save the day. The townspeople would worship him, and he would hunt down robbers and outlaws to collect his bounty.

Jonathan would be the 'kid', the quick-witted sidekick who rode a slightly smaller stallion than Rick, but who was quick with a pistol. Or two pistols, as he now displayed.

And Ardeth was the mysterious lone gunman they were forced to ally with— if it were indeed the Wild West, they would surely have encountered him amidst a shootout on the Mexican border.

Perry, however, had lost her satchel long ago — perhaps it was back at the museum— and with it, the gun Jonathan had given her before their first face-off with the Americans' posse.

So, whilst the heroes of this pulp fiction scenario blasted their way out of trouble, all she could do was stand beside them, flinching at the bullets that were spat across the treasure room.

She could only hear the thunder of gunshots, and all she could smell was the violence in the air as bullets tore through the rotted corpses of the mummies. Clouds of dust plumed up in their wake, the undead hitting the ground in defeat.

But no matter how efficiently or accurately they fired, the living-dead priests kept getting back to their feet.

"What do we do?" she asked, cringing at all the noise.

"Shoot!" Rick replied, with perhaps the least helpful answer he could have provided her with.

She rolled her eyes.

_I can't just stand here,_ she thought. _I have to help in some way..._

Her eyes darted around the room, searching for any way she might be of assistance. She had never hung back during a fight, and wasn't about to start now.

Thinking about what their end goal was, her mind clicked onto the Book of Amun-Ra.

_The statue of Horus!_ she thought.

If she could get ahead and find the book, they would be able to defeat Imhotep quicker.

There was a tunnel, a dark corridor behind them that lead out of the treasury hall; she took initiative and ran, leaving the trio of men to shoot their enemies down.

It was the exact setting to trigger her claustrophobia, but she didn't care. Perry kept running, kept sprinting towards the end of the tunnel, not caring about mummies or scarabs or cave-ins, just picturing the Horus statue in her mind's eye.

Until she came to a crossroads.

There was a hidden tunnel, snaking off from her original route, that forced her to stop and make a choice. The Ancient Egyptians had a habit of hiding their valuables in unlikely spots, and so this tunnel was the one she took.

As it would turn out, it did not lead her to the statue of Horus at all. Instead, it led her into the path of someone she did not want to encounter at all.

**a/n: So the next chapter will please a few of you, I'm sure. However, there will be a one-shot accompanying it, so be prepared to wait a little while. :) Anyway, hope you enjoyed this! We're getting towards the end, aren't we?**

**Thanks everybody for your lovely reviews and follows and faves and continued support! I love you all!**


	24. Chapter 24

**Okay! So, there's a one-shot accompanying this chapter, entitled "Street Urchins". You may wanna give it a read— it'll certainly make things in this chapter a little clearer. Anyway… On with the show. :)**

**CHAPTER 24**

The gunfire and war-cry of the three amigos could surely be heard at the other side of Hamunaptra.

No wonder the dead were waking up.

Perry blinked past the darkness and tried not to focus on the yelling in the distance, even though she could hear Ardeth's machine gun as clearly as if it were in the corridor beside to her.

Or _was_ it in the corridor beside her?

The sounds came and went, like the ocean tide: one minute they'd be deafeningly loud and unsettlingly close, and the next they'd be far away, to the point where she'd worry incase they stopped altogether.

This was the first indication to Perry that she was lost. Well, not lost, exactly... Just running around in circles.

She had convinced herself she was getting somewhere, especially when she found a wall that turned out not to be a wall. She had ran into it, groaned in frustration, and then yelped when it gave way and she stumbled through into the room beyond.

_Yes!_ she thought. _I've found the—_

Treasure room?

It was exactly the same as she'd left it a minute ago. Minus the boys and the mummies, of course.

Gold artifacts lay at her feet, filling the room to every compass point.

Frantically, she turned in circles on the spot, searching for her corridor again. She could see the stairs they'd descended. Which meant the men had gone down that one... No, _that_ one...

"Wait, what?" she whispered to herself.

There she stood, mouth twisted in confusion, trying to figure out which way to turn. Until another distraction arose, in the form of a skinny little Hungarian man.

There was a clang, and then a whimper, and she spun around to find Beni Gabor struggling to prevent a large golden pillar from falling over.

"You!" she shouted.

Beni jumped in such panic that he dropped the pillar altogether, he too spinning around to face the other individual in the room.

"You!" he shouted, in turn.

Perry opened her mouth to shout at him, face a picture of rage.

The snivelling little weasel! All the grief he had caused poor Jonathan, all of the mess in the Marina Quatermain situation. Not to mention the fact that he had betrayed O'Connell and run off to serve Imhotep.

She had so many things to say to him, so many hateful comments she hadn't expected to receive an opportunity to make...

And yet her furious expression softened in favour of a look of puzzlement.

"What on earth are you _doing_?"

Beni froze.

His eyes slunk guiltily to the hunk of solid gold at his feet, and he began to twist his fingers as he thought up an explanation.

Neither of them considered how ridiculous it was that, amidst this battle between the living and the dead, Beni was actually taking the time to answer her, and she was patiently awaiting that answer.

"I... Err... Uh..."

Then, he bolted.

Kicking up sand in his wake, Beni fled from the room like the coward he was, grabbing as many portable golden knickknacks as his arms could carry and leaving Perry in stunned silence.

The furious look returned to her face.

"Hey!" she shouted after him.

Taking off in her own sprint, the gold blurred around her and Beni Gabor became the primary objective. Winding through Hamunaptra's web of underground corridors, she followed his whimpers and winces all the way to daylight.

The sun hit her eyes hard, causing her to stop and shield them with the crook of her elbow. That transition from pitch darkness to broad daylight was one that hadn't affected Beni, however, who was making a run for it.

She took off again, and found that the man was actually heading for a camel. Not just any camel— one loaded with saddlebags and saddlebags of Hamunaptra's treasures.

"You can't just _take_ all that!" she shouted to him.

"Why not?" he called back. "The curse is already unleashed! I may as well get rich now that I am immune!"

Beni began tugging at his camel's harness, willing it to move in some way. Perry watched him with great fascination at his stupidity.

Stopping about five feet from him, she stared, unmoving, as he wrestled with the creature. He was exhausting himself, muttering pleas in Hungarian to try and coerce its legs to shift.

"You're a little bastard," she breathed. "I should kill you right now."

Beni cried out in frustration and tossed his camel's reigns to the floor. He glared at his camel in defeat, and then allowed his bloodshot eyes to flicker over to Perry.

"You can't kill me," he panted.

She clenched her jaw. Her hair, now a tangled mess due to its freedom in the wind, was frizzing in the humidity.

Beni was probably right. She had no sword, no gun, no blunt object with which to crush his little Hungarian skull. She could strangle him, kick him in the balls until he collapsed and then tear chunks out of his face with her fingernails.

But she wasn't that malicious, so Beni was right.

Which angered her.

"Why's that?" she spat. "Because I'm a woman, or something?"

The question left her mouth without good judgement, trying to act as an outlet for her aggression.

Beni squinted at her, slightly thrown off by the random inquisition.

"No," he snapped. "Because—"

And then he paused.

Face falling, he looked Perry up and down for the first real time. She waited in uneasy apprehension under his watch, wondering if he was having some sort of hallucination. Maybe the heat had gotten to him.

Beni tilted his head.

"Maybe you should ask me where I got my hat."

Perry, by now, was utterly baffled. The man was staring at her like he had just seen another version of her. Like he had remembered something, like a snippet of a memory had flashed through his mind and he'd had just enough time to grab hold of it…

The way she had first looked at Ardeth, except she could never grab that memory.

For a horrifying second, she thought Beni might reveal to her that he was her dead sibling, or something equally as dramatic.

"What?" she snapped. "Wh—Where did you get your _hat_? _What?_" she asked, shaking her head at this nonsense.

Beni smirked his gleaming yellow smirk, and reached up to fondly tap the red felt fez on his head.

"It was my grandfather's," he said, wheezing a little with laughter. "He was in the Turkish army. They give—"

"—everyone in the Turkish army one."

Perry finished his sentence.

Her face fell, too, just as Beni's had a minute ago, as if her own words were poison.

She _knew_ that information. She _knew_ the fact about the fezzes and the Turkish army.

In fact, she distinctly remembered the conversation.

_Where are you from, little girl?_

_Alexandria._

_Ah._

_Where did you get your hat?_

_It was my grandfather's. He was in the Turkish army. They give everyone in the Turkish army one._

_If you're from Hungary, how did you end up here?_

_I am a part of the French Foreign Legion. I'm just on leave for now._

The accent. That bloody Hungarian accent.

She didn't know why she hadn't recognised it before. It's not like his voice was deeper.

Of course, she'd never learned his name. And she'd not spent more than an hour with him on that rooftop, that one night, when she was fourteen—

"You're that boy from el-Arafa!" she bellowed.

Beni smirked.

"You're the little bitch who said I was too skinny to be a man."

Perry groaned in frustration. Why couldn't she trade in that one, random memory of a Hungarian boy for all of her memories with Ardeth? Why did fate have to be so cruel so as to give Beni Gabor a place in her past?

Beni shook his head.

"What do you know, little girl? I was right! You did turn out to be a whore! The underpaid kind that does special things for her English boss—"

Perry lunged towards him, swiping for his face with a claw-like hand. Beni dodged her, stumbling out of the way and using his camel as a cover.

"You snivelly little bastard!" she snarled.

Hiding behind his camel, all Perry could envision was pulling him out and punching him in the stomach, or the throat, or the face. If Beni hadn't been right before, he was now: there was no way she could kill him. He knew her memories were precious. The weasel had sniffed out her weakness and cracked its shell.

"I gave you my bread! I gave you my bread!" he began to shout. "I told you stories!"

She scowled, and stopped chasing him around the camel.

Her shoulders dropped.

"Now I really can't kill you," she panted, disheartened, glaring at the sand.

Beni peered out from around the arse of his camel.

"That's right," he panted back. "Because you're too much like me."

Perry's eyes flicked up to him.

"I am nothing like you."

Beni stepped out from behind the animal, and eyed her. Then, he took a step to the closest saddlebag to examine his horde of gold.

"You are exactly like me," he said. "At heart, we are both street urchins."

He ran his hand over the falcon-faced head of a Khonsu statue, a figure twenty inches long or so, with a sharp moon-disk on its top and a spear in his solid gold hand. It protruded from the leather like it was watching their conversation.

"Not anymore. I have a home, and a job, and people who care about me. You are the slave of a mummy." Perry hissed, prodding a finger at him in midair.

Beni began to tap his fingers on Khonsu's head.

"But I have the gold, you see," he said. His voice was quiet. It made her listen. "And we both know what it feels like to yearn for gold. To be so deprived, so hungry, that you would sell your soul to have life treat you fortunately for once."

She swallowed.

Once again, he was right.

_I'm not like him,_ she told herself. _I don't need gold._

Then, Beni did something that surprised her more than anything. He made her an offer.

"Help me load up these camels with gold," he said. "And you can leave this all behind. You can go to Amsterdam. To Pattaya. To Rio de Janeiro."

What would her fourteen-year-old self have done, given such a ludicrous bribe? Taken it, of course. To say no, she would be practically doing herself an injustice.

Glancing over her shoulder at the City of the Dead— the fabled one, not the one above the great cemetery in which they had met— she imagined what it would be like to drop everything and dash off with Beni Gabor.

"What do you say?"

In the story of her life, that would be the ultimate plot twist.

Such an equivalent would be Daisy Buchanan running off with Meyer Wolfshiem.

She turned back to Beni, a grin on her face.

Before he knew what she was doing, she had taken one step, two steps forward. Beni had lured her in. She was close to him now, right by the camel, so close he could feel her fingertips on his, right by the—

Gold.

Perry dug her hand into the saddlebag, and pulled out the heavy golden statue of Khonsu, brandishing it in Beni's face.

"Beni, I'm going to give you two options," she told him, calmly. "And you're going to listen to them. Understand?"

The sharp contours of the moon god's heavy falcon face just inches from his eyes, Beni backed up into the camel. He nodded, Adam's apple jerking as he strained his neck to keep away from the woman's newfound weapon.

Perry looked at him with the sort of satisfaction a jackal has when it gets ready to rip out the throat of a sheep.

"Option one. You're going to tell me how to get to Imhotep as quickly as possible so I can save my friends and let you go in peace," she told him.

Beni screwed up his face. That would mean betraying the devil himself.

"What's option two?" he whined.

She mimicked the grin that had now disappeared from his face.

"I hit you on the head with this, drag your unconscious body into Hamunaptra and feed you to the scarab beetles."

It didn't take long for Beni to tell her that he preferred the former option.


	25. Chapter 25

**CHAPTER 25**

Beni spilled the beans.

"He is at his altar. Where he tried to resurrect Anck-su-mun three thousand years ago."

"Is that so?"

Pinned against the camel, the sharp edges of the Khonsu statue ready to slice into the end of his nose, he found himself realising that this was the first time he had surrendered to a woman.

In a non-sexual manner, of course.

Perry was eyeing him with suspicion, ensuring that he wasn't concocting some elaborate lie to wriggle his way out of failure. Beni's words seemed genuine, but his eyes kept on slipping to where their bodies almost met at the torso.

At first, she thought he was eyeing her midriff. She wouldn't hold it past a vile man like Beni to descend into perversion at a moment like this.

But between his feverish blinks and twitches of his neck, she caught onto the fact that he was wearing a holster, and that the pistol it held was what he'd set his sights on.

Why he hadn't thought of pulling the gun on her before, she had no idea. Perhaps the tiniest sliver of a gentleman lingered somewhere in the darkest depths of his soul, and he subconsciously kept shooting women as a last resort.

Or, he had just forgotten he had a gun until now.

Either way, this was working to her advantage.

"Tell me, Beni," she said, meeting his ever-exhausted blue eyes with a challenging stare from her own ebony ones. "How do I get to this altar?"

He was about to answer, and then he felt her hand brush against his stomach.

Freezing, it was all he could do to shut his eyes and wince as she removed the pistol from its place on his hip.

There was a click.

Opening one eye to peek at the consequence of his silly mistake, Beni found himself staring straight into the end of his own gun.

He swallowed.

The small Egyptian woman to whom the finger on the trigger belonged was smirking at him.

"It is below all you have seen in Hamunaptra," he admitted, wearily. "In the cemetery. You can get to it from the most eastern tunnel in the treasure room, behind the sphinx statue."

Perry took a step away from him and opened the bullet cartridge to see how much ammunition he had left. It was full.

"Isn't this entire place a cemetery?" she muttered, rhetorically.

Beni, with a face like thunder, was somewhere between sulking and loathing. He glowered at her as she backed away.

"If I leave now," he began to ask, "how do I know you won't just send your boyfriend and his gang out to slaughter me in the middle of the desert?"

Obviously, he was referring to Ardeth and the Medjai.

It was true. Beni knew about Hamunaptra, about the secret. Bloody hell, he worked for Imhotep. If she made him leave now, she would be probably be violating the Medjai's code...

"I won't." she decided.

Tossing him the Khonsu statue, a dull thud sounded as it landed by his feet. For probably the first time in his life, Beni didn't take notice of the gold.

"If you get on that camel and leave," she gestured to the animal with a wave of his gun, "I'll not tell anyone of your survival or whereabouts. But you must promise to leave Jonathan Carnahan and Marina Quatermain alone, and never speak of Hamunaptra again."

Even though he was standing perfectly still, something about Beni looked utterly defeated.

In the smallest movement, she saw his head jerk downwards in a little nod.

Taking this as her cue to leave, she turned and ran in the direction of Hamunaptra's nearest entrance.

Beni's voice, whiny and strained, shouted out after her as she grew close to disappearing.

"What about all that gold?"

She stopped and glanced over her shoulder at him. He hadn't yet mounted his camel, but his hand was brushing readily against one of its reigns.

"Beni, if you follow me back in here, you won't make it out alive."

And with that, she left the Hungarian man to stare glumly at the Khonsu statue by his feet.

**XxXxXx**

For all of his terrible traits, Beni had proved to be truthful in his directions. Behind a statue of a solid gold sphinx adorned with gemstones, there lay an opening in the walls, concealed by shade and easily missed.

There were no gunshots in the treasure room, now. No mummies screeching. No machine gun rattling.

Perry booted the bad thoughts out of her mind and headed fearlessly into the narrow passageway, discovering after a couple of stumbles that it mostly consisted of stairs.

The tunnel wound down and down, the dusty steps grew thinner and harder to keep a pace on, and the walls turned cold beneath her fingertips.

"Please don't be dead," she whispered into the darkness, praying for Jonathan and Ardeth and Evie and Rick. "Please don't—"

"The Book of Amun-Ra! I've found it Evie, I've found it!"

She gasped.

Jarring to a halt, Perry's eyes went wide and a little laugh left her suddenly smiling lips.

She had never been so relieved to hear Jonathan Carnahan's voice.

And it was close by, too.

"Shut up and get me off of here, Jonathan!"

Evie's distressed tone met her ears next.

Moving quickly again, Perry flew down the steps, towards the sounds of their voices that undoubtedly lay at the passage's end.

"Open the book. It's the only way to kill him! You have to open the book and find the inscription!"

"Bloody thing, I can't open it! It's locked, or something!"

There was a light at the end of her tunnel, now. Just a minute, and she'd be in the altar room, as Beni had said...

"We need the key, Evie!"

"It's inside his robes!"

Evelyn's words were masked by the blood pumping through Perry's ears, the pounding of her footsteps against the stone floor.

The glow of amber light was inches away. She rushed into it, finding herself face to face with—

_Smack._

"Oww!"

Jonathan. Jonathan's skull on hers, to be more precise.

In a haze of groans, she found herself mirroring the Englishman as he massaged the point of impact.

"Jonathan, don't you ever look where you're going before you round corners?" she snapped.

He blinked away the pain and looked at her with surprise and confusion and startle, but the matter of his sister's life was obviously pressing him to not stand around.

Then, he spotted the gun in her hand.

"Is that a _gun_?" he asked. "Wait a minute, where have you been?"

She shook her head to signify that it didn't matter, and then changed the subject by pointing to the heavy-looking book in his arms. He grew excited when she noticed it, smiling and nodding, gun forgotten.

"Is that—"

"— The Book of Amun-Ra!" he exclaimed, beaming as wide as ever. "I tell you, Perry, I'm hitting on all six cylinders tonight!"

In that moment Jonathan seemed, to his assistant, a better archaeologist than Augustus Pitt-Rivers, Mortimer Wheeler and John Lloyd Stevens combined.

"Well done, Mr. Carnahan!" she breathed, gleefully.

Howard Carter couldn't lace his boots.

Her employer snorted in false modesty and waved his free hand in dismissal.

"Well, O'Connell helped, I suppose, but I did find that Horus statue single-handedly..."

He was chuffed with himself. Face flustered, hair out of place, a sheen of sweat coating his forehead; one would think Jonathan just run a marathon to retrieve the book, and then all the way back again to tell her his story.

A yelp echoed out from the hall that Jonathan had fled, leading Perry to believe that that was where Imhotep had held Evie captive.

If Jonathan was here, then Rick was probably holding off Imhotep. Whether O'Connell's machine gun-toting comrade was at his side, she didn't know.

"Where's Ardeth?" she asked.

Jonathan's mouth hung open, as if an answer was supposed to come out of it but he was too afraid to give one.

Straining her ears, Perry could hear the undead moaning, and Evie shouting things to Rick. Swords slashed, now, but she had a terrible feeling that her Medjai friend wasn't around to brandish one.

"He stayed back to hold off some, err, mummies," Jonathan told her.

Anxiety stabbed her chest.

"What? Where?"

Jonathan raised his eyebrows and sputtered something about a hall and the statue room.

"Look, Perry, I need the key!" he eventually cried. "We're running out of time!"

Perry frowned. Terence Bey had told her about the powers that the book in his arms possessed. Reaching out, she tugged at it until he let her see the cover.

"Read these incantations," she whispered, eyes scanning the hieroglyphics on its front. "Raising some undead opposition to even the playing field might be a good idea..."

Jonathan's eyes grew wide.

"What did you say?"

She bit her lip.

"I don't know, but if you just read these inscriptions, they'll buy you some time."

Overwhelmed, he gulped and examined the hieroglyphs with uneasiness.

"I'm a bit rusty," he stated, voice afraid. "Usually Evie translates everything. And right now she's—"

His sister's panicked voice caused them both to glance away from the book. She was telling O'Connell to 'look out'.

"— In a bit of a pickle."

Perry took a look at the spells that would grant Jonathan some power. He could read these, if he just put his mind to it. Laziness had lulled him into a false sense of security over the years, and now he was doubting himself.

"I'll get you started," she whispered, tapping the first symbols with shaking fingers. The twisted flax, an owl and a lasso were among the first engraved alphabetical pictures; hands, vultures, reeds and snakes followed, and with every annunciation Perry gave of their meanings, Jonathan grew more confident.

Within seconds, he was reading pretty fluently.

"I can do this," he whispered to himself, struggling to bring the heavy book closer to his face with his injured hand. "I can do this!"

Perry patted him on the back in reassurance.

"Good! You go out there and save Evie!"

He made to take off, still concentrated on the book cover, and then turned to her when he realised he wasn't being followed.

"This way! Hurry up!"

Dampening his eagerness to be a hero, the look of confusion that set itself upon his face made her want to run along with him.

Jonathan certainly didn't resemble the man who had stumbled into her flat with the puzzle-box last week, and this she was very proud of.

He had found the statue of Horus and the Book of the Living independently. Assuming the role of older brother, which he often fell out of by mistake, he had near enough saved his little sister in her time of need.

Yet here he stood, not realising that he didn't require Perry's assistance anymore.

She wasn't going to follow him.

"I'm going to help Ardeth," she said. "He needs me more than you do."

Jonathan looked like she'd just informed him of a long-hidden death wish.

"You'll die!"

_Oh, he has so much faith in me,_ she thought.

"Maybe," she admitted with a certain bravery, grimacing at the boldness of this decision. "But it's what I have to do. _You_ have to find the key! So, go!"

Jonathan pulled his face, making jerky little movements on the spot from repeated hesitation.

"Go!"

He fled, Book of Amun-Ra held close to his squinting eyes, thin feet clumsily navigating their way out of this corridor.

Perry looked back at the passage through which she had just arrived. The notion of climbing all of those flights of stairs was one that made her feel queasy. Luckily, a new option had arisen: Jonathan's route.

Scooting under the broken stone archway in which he had just appeared with the book, she found herself with a full view of the cemetery.

Wide stone steps ascended and descended from either side of the landing she was stood on, suggesting that Jonathan had run down from their start.

Not too far below her, at the centre of this darkly palatial hall, there lay two stone slabs; chained to the top of one was Evelyn Carnahan, and at her side the mummified body of Imhotep's beloved Anck-su-namun lay in waiting.

Rick had a sword, and a posse of priests had obviously had their malicious intentions cut short by its blade— bandage-clad body parts were scattered in all directions.

And, perhaps the most terrifying feature of this resurrection room was situated just across the way from her. Halfway up the flight of steps, Imhotep stood watching over everything with bitter calmness.

Perry didn't move, incase he saw her. He had that affect. If she was a jerboa, he was a jackal.

Evie stumbled away from the table as O'Connell freed her from the last of her restraints.

Once the librarian had moved, Perry realised that another item remained on the stone slabs, beside Imhotep's dead lover. The Book of the Dead.

Had everyone forgotten about it?

Her attention was diverted when Jonathan reappeared, finishing the last part of one of the incantations adorning the Book of Amun-Ra.

There was a bang, and then the unmistakable sound of marching, like the cavalry had just been called by Jonathan's goofy attempt at a spell. Into the room filed ten undead soldiers, tall and solid, brandishing spears and shields. They lined up to square off with the living.

"Oh yeah, this just keep getting better and better," Rick said, backing Evelyn away from them and holding out his sword.

Perry looked on worriedly as Evie urged her brother to do something.

Things sped up considerably, then.

Jonathan disappeared. The soldiers closed in on Evie and Rick, and in a flurry of screeches and scratches, Evie found herself under attack.

The body of Anck-su-namun had removed itself from the resurrection table. Apparently, it was displeased with its would-be host body.

Imhotep shouted a command in his tongue. The soldiers closed in on O'Connell, who was now alone and looked no match for their agile, unnaturally fast and strong figures.

Rick bolted. They chased him.

If Imhotep was going for the 'divide and conquer' strategy, it seemed to be working.

Perry realised that she had done no more than the High Priest for a while, standing on the steps, overseeing everything. It was time to move.

Swallowing fear for the millionth time, she rocketed down her steps and past where was Imhotep stood.

She didn't look back to see his reaction to her presence. The stone resurrection tables lay in her sight, and to those she headed with determination.

Fingers finding the cold obsidian of the Book of the Dead, she snatched it up and took flight towards her exit.

The last thing she heard before she reached the cemetery's exit was Evie shouting,

"Hurry up, Jonathan!"

**XxXxXx**

The Book of the Dead was heavy, but she didn't regret picking it up.

Her arms ached, and the stairs weren't any easier to defeat with the added mass; but she had been compelled to grab it, to swipe it from beneath Imhotep's nose, even if its damage was already done.

She found a little chamber, dark and oddly structured— layers upon layers of varying panels building up its walls— in which to pause and take a breath. There were statues draped in cobwebs in little coves here, and the sand was bright where the ceiling was hidden in darkness.

Ancient writings ran in golden columns on the black stone, but she didn't take time to read them. Ardeth was on her mind, and it was high time she found him.

Lugging the Book of the Dead around would be a major inconvenience, so she placed it snugly within a gap between two panels. An odd extension protruded from this space also, jutting out from the black walls like a man-made weed.

The extension had a bronze jackal's head at its end, and after finding it close to her face when crouching to hide the book, she recognised it to be that of Anubis.

Anubis' presence was ominous anywhere, but she ignored it and tucked the book below it. It served as a good reminder that she'd put it there, anyway.

Certain that the cursed book was efficiently concealed in this room, Perry got to her feet and headed off to find her Medjai friend.

**- Expect Chapter 26 to be up soon, guys! :D**


	26. Chapter 26

**Ahhh, here we are! I know I said that this would be up sooner than it is, but it turned out to be much longer than I had expected. Whoops.**

**(In fact, this and the next chapter were supposed to be one, but then it hit 4000 words and I decided to split them.)**

**And, to answer **_**princesskitty68**_**'s question: no, this is not the last chapter, and neither is Chapter 27!**

**Anyway… To be honest, I'm pretty terrified to be posting this. So, I'll just pray that you guys don't hate it…**

**Here you go!**

* * *

_**Arabic:**_

_**Alhamdulillah- **__**Praise to God**_

* * *

**CHAPTER 26**

This was it. If any trio were going to defeat Imhotep, it would be Jonathan, Evie and good old Rick O'Connell.

They had made it this far. If they survived, they could claim all the glory that accompanied saving the world. That was their job.

Perry had concluded that _her_ job was an entirely different one. It meant letting Jonathan go, but it was what she knew to be right.

Her job was to make sure Ardeth Bay got out of Hamunaptra alive. Even if that meant somehow hauling his near-dead, half-comatose behind out of the innermost chamber of the City of the Dead.

Luckily, she found him in not nearly quite as bad shape.

"Ardeth!"

Noting that Beni wasn't lurking around the hallways (indicating he had indeed left), she discovered the room of Horus' statue with ease.

A layer of smoke had drifted up to its ceiling, and tiny flames lingered around the massive man-made hole in the wall that served as her doorway.

Apparently, Rick had finally found a chance to use that stick of dynamite.

And Perry could see why he had been forced to do so. The only other exit was filled with mummies, and it was in this darkened hallway that Ardeth was trapped.

"Pyrrah?!"

Through the lack of light, she managed to make out the bandaged limbs and hostile movements of the undead as they attacked the Medjai. He was doing well to hold them off, kicking and punching and throwing them away, but the onslaught was overwhelming.

Perry skidded to a stop at the room's entrance and, as steadily as she could with shaking hands, raised Beni's gun.

The commotion was hard to navigate. If a bullet were to mistakenly land a single inch out of place, it could mean death for Ardeth.

She pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times. The targeted mummies screeched and wailed, unable to be killed but collapsing from whatever sort of shock or pain they temporarily felt.

There was a hollow thud as Ardeth grabbed another by its rotting shoulders and hurled it into the opposite wall. He turned to her as she shoved her way to his side.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, out of breath.

A screaming mummy launched itself onto his back, catching them both off guard. Perry yelped, and nearly dropped Beni's gun as she jumped to his aid. Together, they dragged it off of him, and Ardeth kicked it backwards into two mummies behind it. They toppled like bowling pins, ghastly screaming making the two living people cringe.

"I'm here to help you!" she snapped at him, annoyed by his questioning of her motives.

"You should follow O'Connell and Carnahan," he told her. "Help them save Evelyn and stop the creature!"

Perry fired the last of her shots at the mummies as they clawed their way to their feet, freeing up a bit of space for she and Ardeth. Beni's gun was useless now, so she let it fall to the ground.

"They're on top of things," she said. "I'm here to help you."

He frowned at her, staring as if her facial expression might betray hidden dementia to him and thereby justify her actions.

There was a raw screech from the corridor's end, one that might have belonged to a prehistoric lizard. Of course, they knew it belonged to another gaggle of mummies.

"You are putting your life at risk," he said quietly, eyes shifting between her and the slinking shadows cast by the encroaching undead. "You should flee to the surface."

Perry shook her head, watching him with a frown that was only produced from hiding fear.

"I am a Medjai too, am I not?"

For a moment she expected another protest, a statement of how she had not sworn to any oath, of how he did not need her help and how she should run to safety.

Instead, Ardeth looked at her with faint surprise. A curt nod told her he had accepted that she would fight the enemy at his side.

The mummies poured into the hall in a stumbling wave of uncontrolled limbs and deteriorating grey rags. They moaned and shrieked as they pushed each other up against the walls, clamouring to annihilate the living as their master commanded.

"Na uzo billah," Ardeth said, voice low and foreboding.

_Allah protect us._

"Right now, I'll accept protection from Amun, Osiris or bloody Seth, just as long as we get out of this place alive," Perry whispered back.

They didn't have time to say anything further to one another.

Ardeth stepped forward so that the mummies reached him first. He grabbed the skulls of the first two and smashed them together, their fragile bones collapsing inwards like fine china. The mummies wailed and dropped to the ground, their dead brethren trampling forth over their still-squirming bodies.

Rotted fingers began to reach nearer and nearer to Perry's face, so much so that her view of Ardeth and much of the tunnel was blocked.

She frowned and grabbed one of the outstretched arms of the dead, suddenly filled with venomous determination to defeat these damn things.

Giving the arm a yank, it came clean off the mummy's torso, fingers still wiggling in distress. It began to wail, and so she used the detached limb as a weapon of her own. She swung it at the mummy's head, which flew backwards and disappeared into the darkness.

More mummies closed in, and one by one she batted them away with the body-less arm. Until the arm's bones broke, of course.

Nearby, Ardeth was thrashing around, violently unleashing the wrath of a Medjai onto the servants of his people's greatest enemy. This was what he had been trained for since he was young; he certainly wasn't going to pull any punches.

Perry found her own punches doing a deal of damage, but it was trickier for her to hold them off than the well-built swordsman. She yelped in pain when one of the mummies caught hold of her hair, pulling it violently into the swarm of decay that encircled her.

Whilst she struggled against the stinging pull on her scalp, another grabbed her arm. The mummies may have crumbled to no more than shattered clay when opposed by a human, but when they got their hands on living flesh, thousands of years of a curse's work brought about an unquenchable anger.

Rotted fingernails dug themselves into the joint of Perry's elbow, causing her arm to jerk in agony as they tore through skin and agitated nerves.

A hurt groan escaped her throat as they began to capitalize, gripping her wrists and shoulders, tugging at her hair and shirt. Jagged bones, fractured from decay, scratched into her forearms and back and neck, and panic arose when the unlatched, elongated jaw of a bandaged face began to draw closer.

Perry gasped in peril, unable to back away, unable to free herself from the steely grip they had on her body—

And then that unlatched jaw with its horrid broken teeth was yanked away from her face, the scream that followed suggesting that Ardeth didn't take kindly to mummies assaulting his friend.

Wrenching the vile, mindless creatures off of her, Perry found herself with enough freedom to fight back again.

Pulling it downwards, she grabbed a mummy by the shoulders and kneed it in the chest; her kneecap broke straight through the front of its lungs. Dead fingers on her shoulder then sparked an instinctive jerk of her elbow, which flung backwards and cracked the front of a hollow skull.

Ardeth was at her side again within a moment, and suddenly any vulnerability had disappeared. Side by side, they scrapped and clawed, punched and kicked and shoved the undead around, until they were the dominant ones despite the seemingly endless stream of Ancient Egyptian corpses.

Finally, the last body of the mummified throng was defeated, head crushed into the sand beneath Ardeth's foot.

Silence settled in the hallway, but neither of them could recognise it due to the buzz of adrenaline in their ears.

"D— Did we do it?" Perry panted. "Is it done?"

Ardeth's chest rose and fell with shallow breaths as he scoped out the perimeter of the corridor. All was still in the Horus statue room and its hallways.

He shook his head.

"That was one swarm," he said. "More may find us soon."

Perry looked over at him.

He seemed fine. Taller and stronger than before, in her eyes. Battle suited him, but he wasn't so cruel a soul as to enjoy it.

"Are you hurt?" she breathed.

He shook his head, but didn't look at her. He began to turn on the spot, robes swishing around his feet as he looked for an escape route.

His eyes settled on the Horus statue. Apparently he had made up his mind regarding their next move, but then a glimmer of remembrance that Perry was there passed over his face in distraction.

"What about yourself? Are you injured?"

She shook her head to spare him worry, although her shoulder was aching badly and she felt bruised all over.

Giving Ardeth a look of desperation, she let out a sigh when he took her by the wrist and pulled her into his arms. She shut her eyes tight against his chest; they held each other firmly, a strange wave of urgency provoking this embrace.

He softly stroked her hair, keeping her head close to him, as if his arms wouldn't let danger reach her again. She could feel his chin rest affectionately on the top of her head.

Perhaps it was from shock, but something about being so close to him felt... natural. She didn't want to let go.

"We must leave this place now," he said, quietly. "Or further risk our lives."

Perry nodded against his robes.

What had become of Rick, Evie and Jonathan, she had no clue. But they didn't have another option. Should another group of mummies attempt to take them out, they might not possess the stamina or strength needed to face them.

"Okay," she said, stepping away from him.

They hurriedly headed to the room of the Horus statue with intentions to flee. No mummies lay in their path: the coast was clear for now. Glancing at the dynamite-hole in the wall, Perry stopped in her tracks and gasped.

"Wait!" she yelped. "The Book of the Dead!"

Ardeth frowned in confusion. He was obviously eager to escape Hamunaptra, but he paused to question her.

"What of it?"

"I took it from Imhotep's resurrection table," she said. "I hid it, so that nobody would find it until I got to you."

Ardeth looked puzzled, his eyebrows raising a tad.

"We must retrieve it. Let us hurry."

Perry led him through the maze that was Hamunaptra, ears perked for any sounds, eyes peeled in the dim light. She prayed Ardeth had a better sense of direction than she did, lest they wonder aimlessly among these halls until an ironic death claimed them.

"Here, this is where I put it."

They had almost missed that odd little room with the black panelled walls. She took him by the hand and pulled him inside, leaving him at the doorway as she scuttled over to the Book of the Dead's location.

Ardeth inspected the stone walls from his spot, eyes narrowing at the golden hieroglyphs that trickled down their fronts.

"Pyrrah..."

Perry crouched, knees hitting the cool sand as she peered into the shadows.

"I left it in one of these gaps..."

"Pyrrah..."

His voice sounded reserved, some kind of suspicion making him tight-lipped. She could hear him step gently towards the panels, perhaps getting a better look at those hieroglyphics.

"Oh, that's right, here it is!"

Perry caught sight of that odd wall-extension, its bronze Anubis head reminding her that she had placed the book below it.

"Pyrrah, I think this room—"

"Got it!"

Fumbling around in the gap in the panels, she finally managed to get a decent grip on the heavy book. Fingers finding the obsidian spine, she dragged it out with a couple of heaves.

"This thing is very heavy, you know," she said to Ardeth, so flustered that she didn't realise she was interrupting him. "You would think they could have made it out of papyrus like a regular book, wouldn't you?"

Before Ardeth could tell her what he had read on the walls, Perry got to her feet.

The Black Book was indeed heavy, however, and so she used that convenient wall-extension to pull herself up.

At least, she _was_ using it, until it gave way beneath her hand.

She jerked her fingers away from the sudden movement. Anubis' ornamental head began to slide downwards, making a mechanically slow descent towards the sand.

"Why is that moving?" she asked Ardeth, who was staring at it with fearful eyes.

"I think," he replied, "that you have just pulled a lever."

_A lever?_ she thought. _What type of lever could possibly—_

The panels seemed to swallow the Anubis-headed lever, but as it disappeared, a mild rumbling began to broil beneath their feet.

Perry stared at the sand. The grains were vibrating, more so as this rumbling increased. Was it an earthquake? Some strange volcanic eruption?

Hugging the Book of the Dead tighter to her chest, a terrible, terrible thought crept into her mind.

She remembered, the day after Jonathan found the key, the meeting in the curator's office. Jonathan had been babbling on about Hamunaptra and it's myths...

_The entire necropolis was rigged to sink into the sand. On the Pharaoh's command, a flick of the switch! The whole place could disappear beneath the dunes._

Horror setting in, she glanced at the spot where the jackal-headed switch had jutted out from the panels, and then at Ardeth.

"You're not thinking the same thing I am... Are you?" she asked, feebly.

Ardeth's eyes shot to the roof. Tiny waterfalls of sand were beginning to leak from it, trickling down and pooling in little mounds on the floor. A loud cracking noise made Perry jump; the ceiling sounded as if it were going to cave in, and the ground give way beneath them.

Ardeth urgently held out his hand to her, face having turned that grave, serious way it did when he sensed danger.

"We must leave! Now!" he practically shouted.

Keeping the Book of the Dead stowed under one arm, Perry found herself being dragged down corridors, trying to keep up with Ardeth's panicked pace.

Normally she would have taken the lead, been more authoritative in an attempt to get them out of harm's way. But the ceilings were descending, and the ancient necropolis reeked of catastrophe.

It was like a nightmare. Or, in Perry's case, a reminder of a very, very bad childhood experience.

"Are we going to die?" she squeaked.

Her own voice startled her, the childlike, high pitch of it, the shakiness due to fear and oncoming tears. Never before had she been so terrified. Rocks were falling from the ceiling, rubble and dust filling the open spaces of air.

Ardeth didn't respond. He was searching for a way out. At first, he paused by the treasure room, but then thought otherwise.

Holding Perry's hand a little tighter with every rounded corner, at last he brought them to a halt by a small doorway.

And at the end of the tunnel beyond it, there was sunlight.

"Go through there!" he instructed her, guiding her towards the passage.

Its entrance was slowly being cut off by a descending stone wall. There was not enough room for them both to slip through simultaneously, yet the other could get trapped on the wrong side.

"Hurry!"

His voice became hazy, and her pleading eyes and worried expression did nothing to stop him from pushing her through the lessening archway. She ducked and stumbled through, sunlight beckoning her from the end of the passage.

Now, it was Ardeth's turn. He would have to crawl through, quickly, or be crushed or trapped.

"Quickly, Ardeth! Hurry!" Perry begged him, coming to her senses a little now that survival was close enough to taste.

The space between stone and bone was shrinking. She put down the Book of the Dead, reached out and grabbed his arms. Summoning all of her available strength, she heaved until he was dragged clear of the wall.

His feet made it through just seconds before the stone closed shut on the sandy floor.

But there was no time to celebrate quite yet. Ardeth got to his feet in the same time it took Perry to retrieve the book, and then they were out of Hamunaptra.

By the time they stopped running, the desert was all that lay in front of them, and the City of the Dead far, far behind.

Resisting the urge to collapse wasn't an easy one. Perry dropped the Book of the Dead, and stood practically gasping for breath.

"Alhamdulillah," she said, shaking her head at the open blue skies.

For once in her life, no more words would to spring to her mind. She always had a quip to snap at Jonathan, or a joke to snicker to Evie. Now, only the word Alhamdulillah was running endlessly through her head— because she and Ardeth Bay had _survived_.

She felt him at her side, and without words, her hand found his. Their fingers intertwined as they each watched the City of the Dead fell to pieces. Briefly, she wondered if they had held hands a lot as children.

"Pyrrah."

His voice seemed a million miles away.

Turning to gaze up at that familiar face, Perry found that he was looking at her with a sort of heaviness in his eyes and frown that she hadn't seen before. It wasn't that he looked upset, or angry; it was as if he was watching for some movement she might give, awaiting some sort of gesture on her part.

The crumbling Hamunaptra in her peripheral vision began to lose importance, slipping from her mind as other thoughts took residence there.

Ardeth Bay, the boy who had grown to believe his best friend had died all those years ago, had just saved her life. Saved both of their lives— he could take the credit for that last dash to freedom, during which she was too blinded by fear to perform many heroics.

She imagined how he must have longed for that chance as a boy. To be able to save her life, to do what everybody else had failed to do and change the way fate was cruelly twisted.

He must have entertained such painful fantasies, dreamed of impossible scenarios with her that had long slipped beyond his reach. Perhaps, she thought, _she_ was the reason for his ever-present frown, for that dark look on his face that suggested he was disappointed with the evil in everything.

But now here they were. Here she was, alive and well at his side, and he had saved her life.

For just a moment, Perry understood exactly what was going through Ardeth's mind.

Which was why, when he swooped in close to her, she threw her inhibitions to the wind and met him in a kiss.


	27. Chapter 27

_Arabic:_

_Sa'arak qareeban - see you soon_

_Allahsmalladic - goodbye and Allah bless_

* * *

**CHAPTER 27**

The sheer horror of everything they had just been through melted when his lips met hers.

Perry kissed Ardeth back, holding his neck with one hand and pushing her fingers up into his hair with the other.

It was a full, delicious kiss, one that she had been longing to taste since those eyes had played on her broken memory, since she had learned his name and sat with him in the museum, since she had watched him frown in concern when she was injured and smile when he told her of their childhood.

The enormous crashing noises of Hamunaptra imploding in their presence deafened her ears and rattled the floor beneath them, but Perry shut her eyes and allowed herself to sink into this man's kiss.

Numb towards the chaos, thoughts of how this should have felt so sinful flitted through her mind. His hands on her back should have felt inappropriate, intrusive; her own actions weren't the most modest, and caving to desire should have made her feel weak-willed.

But it didn't feel sinful, or wrong in the slightest.

It felt right. Very right. When Jonathan had kissed her, it had felt—

_Jonathan._

Perry nearly propelled herself out of Ardeth's arms, gasping in horror and spinning around to face the City of the Dead.

"Wait, wait!" she yelled at the massive plumes of sand that were spewing out in the wake of the city's collapse. Or perhaps the words were meant for Ardeth. "Are they dead? They can't be dead! No!"

Her eyes searched the scene of disaster that lay before them.

A colossal weight dropped itself inside her chest, like a massive stone had just crushed her soul. Evelyn, Rick and Jonathan might not have made it out alive, and she was stood here, kissing Ardeth Bay?

As if she had just drank a vial of poison, Perry clasped her hand over her mouth. She had triggered this. The city was killing itself because of that lever she had pulled, and it may have dragged her friends down with it.

_What have I done?_

Breaths becoming ragged, tears threatening to spill in growing devastation, her emotions were cut off when Ardeth's hand firmly laid itself on her shoulder.

"Pyrrah," he said, his voice not nearly as mournful as it should have been. "Look."

Confused, she glanced over her shoulder to find that he was pointing in the other direction, to their side. There, three small figures— black and white blots against the rusted gold of the sand— were fleeing for their lives, safely making their way out of the city border. O'Connell and the Carnahans.

The relief was almost enough to make her faint.

Her frown eased, and a grin began to upturn the corners of her mouth.

"I thought I'd killed them!" she wheezed, unable to restrain the chuckles that soon followed.

Ardeth smiled, a little pitifully, when she began to laugh from the hilarity. Perry looked delirious, on the verge of tears but laughing at her friends' survival.

He turned his attention away from her soon, back towards the sinking City of the Dead, and his face hardened in a stony frown.

Clearing her throat, she forced herself to stop laughing in order to join the Medjai in his seriousness.

They stood, staring in not-quite-silence as hell itself swallowed up the ruins.

"You sunk Hamunaptra."

Ardeth's eventual words made her bite her lip. She swore she heard him let out a sigh of exasperation.

"Am I... In trouble?"

He didn't remove his gaze from the roaring, rippling sands. With the fear of a child awaiting punishment, she listened for his answer.

"No," he told her. "I will tell the tribes that the city's destruction was activated by Imhotep's assistant. He must have perished by now."

It took her a moment to realise that he was talking about Beni Gabor.

Once again that snivelling little Hungarian was mucking the course of events up, and he wasn't even here.

Perry swallowed. She had promised Beni that she wouldn't tell anybody— Ardeth included— of his survival.

Now, she was faced with a choice. Either break her promise, tell Ardeth of his survival and cause the Medjai the trouble of scolding her and hunting down Beni... Or keep Beni's escape a secret, and allow Ardeth to use his death to cover up the truth of her mistakes.

"Okay."

The word left her mouth, and in an instant she had regretted it a million times and come to terms with this new lie that couldn't be undone.

It wasn't really a lie, was it? A promise kept, a secret buried, problems solved.

Not for Beni, though. No, she was lying for the Medjai, and Jonathan, and general peace of mind. Beni didn't deserve her efforts.

Reminded of troubles and their roots, Perry ducked to the floor and picked up the Book of the Dead. With shaky fingers, she dusted the sand off of its bumpy cover.

"I suppose you'll be taking this, then?" she asked Ardeth, bringing his attention to the spell-laden object.

Ardeth gently placed his hands on the other end of it, thumbs cautiously tracing the corners as if testing the obsidian for some kind of static shock.

"Yes. We are fortunate it was not buried with the rest of the city."

Whilst he eyed the book like it might snap at him, Perry turned her head to squint at the folds of sand that were behaving so volcanically.

_You sunk Hamunaptra._

As far as the Medjai would know— as far as Rick and Evie, Jonathan and the rest of the world would know— Beni sunk Hamunaptra. But she and Ardeth would know that she was responsible for this, and therefore responsible for the burial of the creature himself.

Imhotep certainly wasn't anywhere to be seen. She supposed he was miles and miles beneath the desert floor by now.

"Hey, isn't that what the Medjai are supposed to do? Keep the desert's secrets buried, and all of that?" she asked Ardeth, twisting her lips at the inverted landslide.

She felt him take the book out of her grasp completely. He tucked it under his arm as his brow furrowed further at her question.

"Yes."

She smiled widely at him.

"Then I have done my job as a Medjai warrior."

Sparing a glance at the Carnahan-O'Connell troupe if only to hide the beginnings of a smirk, Ardeth put his arm around Perry's shoulders and pulled her affectionately into his side.

"You are not a Medjai _warrior_, Pyrrah," he said, fondly.

Lulling her into walking with him, he led them over to where a spooked herd of camels had gathered.

Perry scoffed, and poked his chest with a stubborn finger.

"Well, I managed to keep you from decapitating me in a sword fight."

"You did nothing in that fight."

"Excuse me?"

Glaring upwards, she challenged Ardeth's grin with a raised eyebrow.

"I told you. I did not want to kill you." he said, simply.

Outraged, her jaw fell.

"I held you off!"

He shook his head.

"No, you did not. That notion is... quite ridiculous. In fact, I don't think you have handled a sword since you were ten."

Temper prickling, Perry was about to snap something at him when his last remark made her pause.

"Wait, how old am I?"

He frowned in calculation, and then said,

"Twenty-seven, I believe."

Ardeth found a camel with saddlebags and tucked the Book of the Dead securely into one of its pouches. The animal snorted and lazily kicked a hoof, but otherwise complied when he lead it over to her side.

Perry had fallen into a half-sulk, partly because the adrenaline was wearing off, partly because she hadn't matched Ardeth in battle at all, and partly because she was a few years older than she had previously thought.

"Where are we going?" she asked him.

Ardeth let go of the camel's reign and planted his attention on her again. He put a hand on her shoulder and kept her eyes on his with a steady stare.

"I am going to leave you with your friends and report back to my tribe."

The answer sounded so _plain_. Ten minutes ago, they had been evading certain death. Now, they were catching a camel to separate paths.

"And then what?" she questioned, disappointment and frustration seeping into her words.

Before Hamunaptra, she had been Jonathan's overworked errand girl. After an adventure like this— for she could describe it as nothing short of an adventure— returning to normal life seemed impossible. She still had so many questions for him, about both of their lives, their pasts, the cloak of mystery that still shrouded much of it all.

It seemed, right then, like he was going to leave her without these answers.

Voice now tainted with worry, she searched his face for some sign of a comforting answer.

"Will I see you again?"

Ardeth leaned down and kissed her once more. It was a gentle kiss, lacking the passion of their previous one, but it told her what she needed to know. His answer that followed was one of Medjai-calibre sincerity.

"I intend to make sure of it."

**XxXxXx**

O'Connell and the Carnahans watched the sinking crevice in stunned breathlessness.

All was calm, finally calm. Until the hand slammed itself onto Jonathan's shoulder, and everybody screamed, and Perry roared with laughter.

"Oh! Thank you! Thank you very much!" Jonathan shouted with hostility, placing his hand on his heart whilst he calmed down from the fright.

From high up on the camel, Perry giggled at that odd English boss of hers before tapping Ardeth on the shoulder to gain his attention. Promptly placing a kiss on his cheek when he turned to look back at her, she said nothing more to the Medjai and climbed down from the animal.

"Mr. Carnahan!" she laughed, flinging herself into Jonathan's arms as if she hadn't hugged him in years.

Jonathan embraced her tightly, patting her back a little too heavy-handedly amidst all the affection.

"You have earned the respect and gratitude of me and my people," Ardeth said, making them break apart to look up at him.

Evie and Rick smiled.

"Ah, well," Jonathan said, acting nonchalant. "It was nothing."

"May Allah smile upon you always." the Medjai told them.

He kissed his fingers and brought them to his forehead in a salute, glancing up at the heavens as he did so.

Jonathan waved his hand around, not doing very well at copying the man's actions.

"And... yourself."

Perry rolled her eyes behind his back. Jonathan was definitely alive, he was definitely unharmed, and he hadn't changed in the slightest.

It was good to know.

"Sa'arak qareeban," Ardeth said, directly to her.

She smiled knowingly up at him and gave a little wave.

"Allahsmalladic."

He nodded fondly, a happy light in his eyes, and that was that.

Camel turning, he began to ride away at a gentle pace. Soon there was a considerable distance between they and he, and Ardeth Bay was all but gone.

"Yes, anytime," Jonathan called to him.

"Stay out of trouble." Rick added.

Perry's mind was abuzz and her feelings fluttery; certainly not the way one should be feeling after such an ordeal with the likes of Imhotep.

She was so distracted with her own thoughts that she didn't register the pause growing in the wake of Ardeth's departure.

"He's just... leaving us here." Jonathan realised. He sighed, and looked wistfully over at where Hamunaptra had once stood. "Well, I guess we go home empty-handed. Again."

Perry clamped her hand onto his shoulder and rested her head there, staring off with him at the site of the Ancient Egyptian city.

This was how they had started. Everything had come full circle: no Medjai warriors at their side now, no Hungarian men or loud Americans, no mummies or ancient curses; it was the Carnahans, and Rick O'Connell, and Jonathan's assistant.

And once again, she didn't have much to say.

"I wouldn't say that."

Rick's voice made Perry look over to where he and Evie were stood, side by side. She hadn't paid them much attention before, but now she saw how close they were to one another. The way they looked into each other's eyes made her smirk.

"Ugh, please..." Jonathan scoffed.

Rick and Evelyn kissed.

Perry scowled lightly at Jonathan.

"I told you this was going to happen, Mr. Carnahan, and I told you to give Evie her space..." she whispered quietly, hissing but not removing her gaze from the couple.

"How about you, darling? Would you like a little kissy-wissy?"

Confused and wondering if he was addressing her— bracing herself for a sequel to that kiss in the museum— she snorted in laughter when she found Jonathan's camel bellowing into his face. He wafted its breath away, causing her to start giggling.

"I don't know what you're laughing at, missy," he abruptly called to Perry, cutting off her chuckles. "You have some explaining to do."

Face dropping, she stomped over to his camel and snatched the reigns off of him.

"Oh, do I?"

"Yes, you bloody well do!" he snapped. "Where were you when I needed _assistance_ from my _assistant_? Eh? Spells don't all work out fine and dandy, you know!"

When he said that, Perry realised that neither he, nor Evie or Rick, were holding the Book of Amun-Ra. It must have been lost in the ruins, perhaps in their battle with Imhotep, perhaps in their dash to freedom.

Nonetheless, she raised an eyebrow.

"Your incantations worked?"

Jonathan took the reigns of his camel back, and attempted to walk it away from her. To his chagrin, the animal stopped in its tracks.

"In the end, yes, they did! No thanks to you, though! Where were you while I was taking down Imhotep?"

Perry shot him a sardonic look.

"You took down Imhotep?"

Jonathan groaned as he fussed over the camel's reigns. The creature was now starting to drag _him_ around.

"I saved the bloody day, I'll have you know!

They began to bicker, Jonathan trying to pull the camel to a halt, Perry following him round in circles, both of them reverted to their original roles as childish employer and stubborn employee.

"I doubt that."

"You are still on my pay, young lady! I suggest you treat me with respect!"

"Do you realise how many times I have saved your life this week?"

"I singlehandedly saved the lives of millions of people today!"

"Singlehandedly?"

"Yes, I, Jonathan Carnahan, saved the world today!"

As Rick and Evie's romantic moment continued, Jonathan and Perry argued with each other as they always did, their words fading into the desert breeze; luckily, O'Connell and his beautiful librarian were entirely oblivious to their surroundings.

Soon they were heading back to Cairo, Perry uncomfortably seated on the back of Jonathan's camel, wondering what life would be like from now on. Their adventure had come to its end.

Beni— with his camel full of gold— was out there, somewhere. Maybe she'd never know what became of him.

Ardeth was out of sight but not out of mind. She would be seeing him again, that much was certain.

Rick and Evelyn had made it through the worst and found one another, and it was crystal clear that they were very much in love. Perhaps they would get married. Riding into the sunset, it didn't seem possible for any two people to be happier in each other's arms.

And Perry had finally gotten to go on a dig... Of sorts.

Out of a horrid situation, during which too many lives had been lost, the survivors had emerged happier than they had entered it.

_It's just a shame,_ she thought, as the amber sun dropped below the horizon_, that Jonathan didn't get any of his gold..._


	28. Chapter 28

**Last chapter! We're finally here. Which is kinda sad, because I've just had so much fun writing this. It was my first story on this archive, but everybody's been so welcoming that it's been wonderful from start to finish.**

**Not to be giving some Oscar acceptance speak here, but I just want to thank a few people who deserve thanking:**

_Kittiko-Blues (Bootsy)-_ thanks for your reviews, and for being the very first person to follow this story! You're great. And I love that you love Daniels.

_Brunette-_ for just being generally awesome and reviewing from the first chapter to the last. Your criticisms are always helpful, and you kept this story from going to the dogs. Plus, you're funny as hell. Your stories are always entertaining, and your advice is endlessly helpful.

_Lyrical Ballads- _For taking a chance on an Ardeth/OC story! Your reviews are always lovely, and you've raised important questions that helped me fill in some gaps. You're kind and funny. (And your obsession with Beni may or may not have kept him alive, here.)

_SkeletonPinata (Kim)- _ My very good tumblr friend, you've been very kind and your reviews are always appreciated. :) Our conversations put the world to rights, too!

Also-

princesskitty68, Angelhaggis, Plague's Vengeance, DavyJoneslover, Ravenclaw Slytherin, JulietBurke007, oXxgeorgiaxXo, Larissa-Hunter, FeliciaFelicis, Mikado X Goddess, and absolutely everyone and anyone else who has reviewed, followed or favourited this story!

OH, and Jamie, who patiently sat by whilst I re-watched the movie a million times. (And only complained a little.)

**Okay, that was probably the longest author's note in history. Sorry. But thank you everyone, and here ya go!**

* * *

**CHAPTER 28**

_Fort Brydon, Cairo. 1926._

_Three months later._

Marina Quatermain stared down at Cairo and touched her stomach, as she had found herself unconsciously doing for the past several weeks, trying to feel some flutter of the life she knew was rooting there.

The view from her balcony had changed. Not physically, of course, despite the constant ebb and flow of the rivers of working people that shifted and churned differently each day.

Mentally. Mentally she was seeing Cairo through new eyes, because this place— this place that she had avoided like the plague for a decade or so— was where she was stuck.

Her fingers dragged across the skin of her womb, against the gentle swell of her lower abdomen.

People had started to notice, now. Their eyes would fall to that unnatural-looking lump beneath the fabric of her dress, and then it would click, and they would beam and whisper, "Congratulations".

_Congratulations._ Funny, how people didn't know what exactly they were congratulating.

The bump may not have been huge just yet, but there was no denying it anymore.

Word would reach her father soon enough. He may have been in Zimbabwe right now, but his Egyptian connections would spread the rumour like carrier pigeons.

And then the Quatermain fortune would be torn from her grasp as quick as their family ties were cut.

What would her late mother have said? She imagined the woman now, drunk as a skunk on the balcony, all fur-coat no-knickers, telling her what a tramp she was.

_Congratulations._

And of course the second place people looked after the baby bump was the ring finger. But her left hand bore no gold, no wedding ring.

Then the congratulations were always exchanged for disapproving eyes and upturned noses.

Marina drifted back indoors and shut the drapes that hung over the veranda's entrance. The heat was getting to her. Or maybe it was the light. Either way, she felt nauseous and her headache was threatening to turn into a migraine.

The clock's hands were just past six; her guest would be here soon. Prayer time was at quarter-to, so she had expected a fashionably late arrival.

Sighing out of habit, Marina seated herself at her desk and absent-mindedly brushed through the papers that lay in neat piles on its top.

When she had chosen this flat to serve as her temporary lodgings the desk had been of little use to her. Now, since she would be staying here for a much longer time than originally planned, it was the most important thing in the room. From this desk she could make money, without anybody knowing how big that baby bump actually was.

A knock at the door made her ocean-blue eyes dart to its place at the other end of the suite, and she made a mental note to hire a butler of some sort to start answering it for her.

"Who is it?" she called.

She wasn't getting up. She might have been pregnant, but Marina Quatermain did not traipse all the way across a room to turn a handle out of politeness.

"It's Pyrrah," came the soft, accented reply. The slight roll of the R's was even audible from here.

"Come in, darling."

The door creaked open, and the hijab-adorned face of an Egyptian woman peered gingerly inside the suite. Marina smiled.

"Marhaba."

"Marhaba."

Soon after she gestured to the seat at the other side of her desk, Pyrrah Ananka was sat opposite her, smiling politely and waiting to hear why she had been summoned to Fort Brydon.

"How are you, love?" Marina asked her.

The woman was dressed in a traditional black tunic and hijab, and (unlike the case in their first meeting) her clothes were _not_ covered in blood.

The deep cut on her face that had been present in their first encounter had since healed, leaving a pale scar along her cheekbone.

"Fine, thank you. Yourself?"

Marina smiled bitterly. _Knocked up, actually_, she thought.

"Great. Smashing."

There was a pause as the blonde woman stole a glance at the liquor cabinet. She needed a drink. But that was yet another privilege that her femininity had _robbed her_ of, and so she cleared her throat and continued with the conversation.

"I heard Jonathan's headed back across the pond?" she asked, praying she didn't sound as on-edge as she felt.

Perry nodded, smile turning half-hearted.

"Yes. He and Evelyn left just last week."

The words were like a slap in the face. A slap in the face she had _not_ been expecting.

It was like time had just turned anticlockwise; karma was promoting the fashion of her bad luck, it seemed.

_He's already gone._

Marina swallowed. Her throat was suddenly dry.

"I didn't realise he had left," she said, trying to keep herself composed with heavy breaths. "I was hoping to talk to him about something... Something rather important."

'Important' was an understatement. She was pregnant with a child that might have been his, and now her chance to tell him had vanished.

Perry gave a little shrug at the desk.

"Well, Evelyn is engaged to Rick O'Connell, so I think they are going to be having the wedding in Britain. I don't know if you know the man, but he was the one who accompanied us on our trip to Hamunaptra. They fell right in love..."

She began to tell her all about how happy Rick and Evelyn were, how he had wasted no time proposing to her and how delightfully joy-filled everybody's lives apparently were.

But Marina listened to none of it. That sentence kept throbbing in her head: _He and Evelyn left just last week._

Tiredness swept through her, and she fought to keep her eyes from glazing over in weary disbelief.

"Yes, I heard all about the Hamunaptra trip," she input when the City of the Dead was mentioned somewhere amidst Perry's rambling.

Perry fell silent, becoming tight-lipped when she noticed the other lady's far-off look of displeasure.

"Sad to hear of all those lost lives," Marina went on. "Even of those who had darker intentions..."

Beni Gabor's death had taken a toll on the Quatermain woman. She had last seen him in such a bad state, and they had left each other on unfriendly terms. Little had she known she would never see him again in her entire life.

He may have been a disloyal, thieving, whining bastard, but she still felt things for him. That interesting Hungarian man had been a spark in her otherwise dull life for a long time. Dynamic and flawed as he was, Beni had even brought a sort of simplicity to the constant state of turbulence her mind was kept in. Whereas she had been so disappointed with life and so unsure of herself, he had seen opportunities in the darkest places, and he knew absolutely who he was in this world.

Knowing that he was gone felt... unreal.

She caught Perry's eyes shifting guiltily away from her face, but chalked it up to awkwardness at the mention of death.

The pace of their conversation had just depleted entirely. Marina sucked in a breath and put on a bright smile.

"But it has brought you lot a bit of recognition, hasn't it?" she asked.

Perry nodded.

"Oh, yes. Evelyn has received a variety of career offers, from the Bembridge Scholars and the British Museum and countless other places."

Marina pressed her fingertips together and pursed her lips. This conversation was heading exactly where she wanted it to.

In all of this mess, she supposed she was fortunate. She had resources, and intelligence, freedom and money. It would be easier for her to have this child than, say, Perry, who would be hopeless in her position.

And a dire position it was.

Not only was she pregnant and unwed— _not only_ was she unaware of which of two men was the father of her child— but one of the men was dead, and the other two thousand miles away.

"What about you, darling? How come Jonathan didn't take you back to England with him?" she asked, sweetly.

Perry smirked, surprisingly unfazed by the edgy question.

"I don't have a passport," she chuckled. "And I doubt Jonathan will be doing anything in England that requires my assistance. Besides— Egypt is my home. I don't want to leave it at the moment."

Marina placed her palms flat on the desk.

"And what about offers regarding your career?" she asked, more serious now.

A frown tugged at Perry's brow. She watched the Englishwoman drum her manicured fingertips on the mahogany.

"I was considering taking a job at the Museum of Antiquities."

Marina fell back in her chair and blew a short raspberry with her lips, like that idea was simply ridiculous.

"Poppycock. You're practically famous, darling, even if you were just the archaeologist's assistant," she stated, shaking her head at the ceiling. "People are going to want to get their claws on you. Which is why I'm approaching you first."

Perry blinked.

"Are you making me some sort of offer, Ms. Quatermain?"

With all the sorrow-eyed thoughtfulness of a movie star, Marina ran her fingers through her waterfall of blonde hair and swept the locks over her shoulder.

A lazy flick of her wrist punctuated the start of her next sentence.

"Yes," she said, decisively. "That would be the short answer. You see, Pyrrah, in the wake of recent events, the archaeological industry is booming— especially in Egypt. Have you heard of William Flinders Petrie?"

Perry raised her eyebrows in surprise, and then nodded.

Anybody in the archaeological field who didn't know who Flinders Petrie was certainly should have known, and so Marina was glad of the woman's knowledge so far.

"Well, Egypt is modernising. Sites are shrinking. And Petrie sees it his mission in life to retrieve as much information as possible from this area. But you already know that, don't you?"

Perry nodded again.

Marina went on.

"In my absence from the field, it seems Petrie has gone and snatched up my team of excavators," she droned with distaste. "So, as I am presently resuming my job of setting up digs on behalf of England's Egyptian Excavation Society, I need to assemble a new team of Egyptologists."

The dark eyes of the woman opposite her gleamed. She tilted her head in hopeful question.

"And... I am one of those Egyptologists?"

Marina shifted in her seat, as if her discomfort was due to her dislike of the forthcoming answer.

"Well, you don't have a formal education, darling," she said. "So I can't officially put you in charge of any projects. That being said, I would very much like to have you serve as a leading member of my team of excavationists."

Clearly not able to care less about the high-ranking position she would never receive, Perry beamed. A little laugh left her smile.

"This is an incredible opportunity," she said.

Marina smiled crookedly.

"I trust that you'd be able to point me in the direction of some of Cairo's places of interest? As a local, I assume you'll provide some valuable insights that I mightn't find elsewhere."

Perry began to nod frantically. She had her hooked.

"Absolutely! There are countless locations I've been dying to—"

"Great! You're hired."

Marina clasped her hands together and waited for the reaction. The Egyptian woman sat, lips parted in wait of words, face set in a smile, eyes bright with glee. She took a breath.

"Thank you!" she gushed. "I am very, very grateful for this, Ms. Quatermain."

The clock hands were drawing closer to half past six. Marina glanced at the time, and then shook her head at Perry.

"No, thank you. Under your guidance, I hope to impress the E.E.S," she told her, and then sighed. "And I also have another favour to ask of you."

Perry raised her eyebrows, leaning forward eagerly in her chair to hear it.

"Since the wealthy enthusiasts who previously funded my projects have turned their attentions to other things, I've had to search for new sources of income," she explained. "It was just my luck that a young woman approached me last week claiming that she'll fund absolutely everything as long as she can be involved in the digs themselves."

Perry looked surprised.

"That's..."

"Amazing, I know," Marina finished. "She popped up out of the blue, really. I was hoping that you could show her the ropes when the time comes, pass on whatever Jonathan has taught you."

She swore she saw Perry pull a face at the mention of Jonathan's 'imparted wisdom', but another knock at the front door distracted them both.

Marina nodded in its direction.

"This'll be her."

The door opened in a swift movement, and into the flat stepped the lady who was to unknowingly ensure a comfortable life for Marina's unborn child.

_Who needs Jonathan?_ she thought, offering her new guest a smile. _Or Beni? I have a business, and it's going to make me lots of money._

The gorgeous young millionaire that strode towards the desk made Perry shrink into her seat out of intimidation.

The black lace of this woman's dress decorated her olive skin like an intricate tattoo, and a sheer netted veil elegantly shadowed her cat-like eyes and prim smile.

Marina wasn't intimidated, by her beauty or her stare or the overwhelming scent of her perfume: she saw pound coins instead of jewellery, bank notes instead of high heels, her son in a Rolls Royce, her daughter in a mansion.

She grinned.

"Pyrrah, I'd like to introduce you to your new colleague, Ms. Meela Nais."


End file.
